


Family Matters

by Sylvia_Forest



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author is not responsible for any harm that has occurred from reading this, Author regrets even thinking of this story and then letting it run loose and wild, Blood and Gore, Cross Marian is an Asshole, Cross makes being an asshole attractive?, Eventual mpreg, Fluff and Smut, I made original characters just to put them through hell as they helped the group, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Kanda Yuu Swears a Lot, M/M, Original Characters - Freeform, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Rotting monster human-bear hybrid things, Slow paced mystery, Smut isn't very well written, Swearing, Tags Contain Spoilers, fast paced romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2020-11-08 09:54:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20833523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvia_Forest/pseuds/Sylvia_Forest
Summary: Three months after Allen Walker is forced to flee from Apocryphos, a small group of ex-exorcists and an ex-scientist stumble into what appears to be an alternate world where they find Allen living in relative peace with a few unexpected individuals. Peace doesn't last long in this new world, for new and old threats are lingering just out of sight and are plaguing the inhabitants and the land. Join Allen, Kanda, Lenalee, Lavi, and others as they fight for this new home they have found for themselves and for new family and friends.Fast paced Romance, slow paced mystery.Originally posted on Fanfiction.net under the same title under the author name Annibeliese. Both are mine. Slight changes will be made between both sites as I realize spelling errors as I move them over here.





	1. Finding Allen Walker

**Author's Note:**

> Okay! The first D'Gray-Man story to go up! Yeah! Okay, a bit of background for you all real fast. This story is literally something that I just thought up while working, cause apparently being dizzy, having headaches, under the influence of painkillers, and making large batches of cookie dough can cause Yullen fluffy stuff to just start running through my head... So, yeah... I know how D'Gray-Man's story goes and I know how it's going, but I don't like it, so I changed it to my liking.
> 
> So in my story, there are 15 NOAH, the 14th and 15th being Mana and Nea, and after Allen gets chased out by the creepy innocence creature Apocryphos, Kanda, Johnny, and Lenalee all look for Allen. They find Lavi and Bookman (they escaped with minimal injuries and harm) and they all find Allen, not as a clown or a gambler, but in a peaceful little town where he is running around with a young girl. This story starts as Kanda and the others find the small town and see Allen.
> 
> Disclaimer: NOTHING HERE BELONGS TO ME! IF I OWNED D'GRAY-MAN, KANDA AND ALLEN WOULD HAVE BEEN TOGETHER AS SOON AS THEY MET! LONG LIVE YULLEN!
> 
> Claimer: So I lied above. I own my OC's and the random location names.
> 
> Please enjoy the story!
> 
> 08/06/2020 Edit! I have started to rewrite this story (rewrite meaning I actually got a beta reader to help me fill out plotholes and make everything transition and move smoother). You are going to notice that chapters are going to disappear and things are going to start sounding weird as you read this. Please bear with me as it will take about a month with how my life is going to do a complete rewrite and fix to finally make this story from the first draft to the final draft. At the time of this update/edit I have rewritten and updated chapters 1, 2, and 3. This means that chapter 1 now holds the events in chapters 1 and 2 while chapter 2 is now chapter 3. The story will also now hold 11 total chapters now.
> 
> Thank you for your patience with me. Family Matters is the only story I am working on at the moment as I need to take a break from the other fandoms I write for because I have had bad experiences with individuals trying to control my writing in other fandoms. Expects updates to Family Matters once a week unless a storm hits and I get pushed back in my schedule or my boss changes my hours at work again.

_ Family Matters _

_ Chapter 1 _

_ Finding Allen Walker _

_ ~DGRAYMAN~ _

The forest radiated serenity and peacefulness as the group of travelers passed through. One could almost call the forest quiet, or asleep. Well, that is until the sound of a sword being unsheathed rang out, followed by a yelp and a shout of 'Damn Baka Usagi!' Yes, traveling through this forest was a small group of exorcists. Well, former exorcists as they left the Black Order to find their missing friend along with a sweet scientist that couldn't bear to leave a friend in need alone. This group consisted of Kanda Yuu, Lavi, Bookman, Lenalee Lee, and Johnny Gil.

Now everyone knows how our beloved Chibi-Usagi loves to tick off our stoic and cold-hearted samurai, and how said samurai would attempt to kill our beloved Usagi. Well, this trip had many little encounters such as this, Lavi would do something stupid to Kanda and Kanda would chase him up the path and try to kill him. To tell a few, Lavi has thrown nuts at Kanda, jumped and hugged Kanda, called Kanda Yuu-chan, tugged Kanda's hair, put branches and twigs in Kanda's hair, startled a bird into dropping its nest on Kanda's head, made remarks about Kanda as he washed off in a nearby river, etc. I could go on about everything Lavi has done to tick Kanda off since they found Lavi, but that's more fit to be called a checklist...

Anyway, this time would be different as Lavi ran off the path and into the forest to escape Kanda's wrath instead of following the path. Kanda followed Lavi not really caring what happened to the others as long as he had the Usagi's head. At least, he thought that till him and Lavi stumbled into a little town hidden and built into the surrounding land.

Kanda briefly thought maybe he should get the others, but dismissed that thought when the other members of the group came to a stop beside him.

"Wow," came a breathy sound from Lenalee, her face lit up with delight at seeing a town so naturally built into the trees around them. "How is this possible?"

"Hey Panda," Lavi started, moving to the left to avoid Bookman's kick, "What is this place? I don't remember this from anything I have read or learned from you."

Kanda looked at Bookman waiting for answers. If Bookman didn't have them, they could always go ask the people in the town where they were.

"I don't know where we are," came Bookman's reply. "I'm not sure what this place even is..."

Cue everyone looking at Bookman in shock, and Kanda just doing his usual 'Che'. Kanda looked back at the town to examine what he could see from his position. The town was built into the trees, doorways and windows created the openings into each trunk, while balconies and bridges connected them higher in the air. Branches and leaves sheltered and supported the structures protruding out from higher on the trunks. He could see where lights hung from under and above the balconies and doors, and even within the branches much higher. The leaves were a strange and enchanting mix of greens, reds, pinks, and purples.

Flowers grew around the bases of the trees, some even growing to flow over the edges of balconies and out of windows, making the land look even more colorful, while light green vines and dark green moss climbed the trees and hung around the branches.

It looked like someone had thrown random colors of the rainbow everywhere and invited kids to come and play in the mess and spread it everywhere. It was also way too peaceful and quiet for Kanda's liking.

"Nii-san!" A voice suddenly rang out from behind one of the larger tree houses. "Hurry up! I wanna explore the forest a bit!"

From around the building ran a small girl with a small katana at her hip. Her dark blue hair was pulled into a delicate braid with flowers braided in, her face a few shades brighter than his own skin, a bright smile on her face as she looked behind her as she ran. Her white short-sleeved shirt fitting not tightly but not loosely, her black jeans clinging to her smaller form, and black sneakers covered her body. It took a second but Kanda realized she had a belt on that the sword's sheath attached to it that was colored silver with light golden swirls in it. Kanda guessed she was about 8 years old and had a sheltered life if she could smile so purely.

"Amber!" Came another voice, one that the group thought was familiar. "Stop running ahead of me! What happens if you get lost?! Amber!"

It was at that moment a pale young man rounded the corner, his silver eyes filled with worry, his red scar standing out against his long and braided snow-white hair. He was dressed in a tight-fitting tank top and tight skinny jeans, both black, making his left arm almost look as if it was a part of his shirt. The normal combat boots Kanda always saw on him were now changed, from worn and ripping to new and fitting, their black base was decorated with silver circles running up where the laces would be, the trim silver colored as well. Kanda knew it was his Moyashi.

Amber giggled and looked forward, only to stop and place a glare on the group before her, and lose all playfulness. Kanda swore he heard Lavi choke out 'Kanda glare' before the Moyashi realized they were there and quickly put himself in front of Amber and glared at them, his black side showing.

"What are you doing here? How did you find this place?"

It was then Kanda realized, Allen would kill them all if they spoke one thing he didn't like. And Lavi was best at that.

Oh shit.

**~DGRAYMAN~**

Allen stared down his friends, ready to attack and get rid of any threat to him or Amber. He watched all of them carefully, slowly taking in that they were wearing casual clothes not the Black Order’s clothes. The group looked really beat up, dirty and covered in grim, clothes so torn and frayed that Allen couldn't tell what the clothes looked like before or their colors. He was watching them, his eyes and mindset hardened, he would kill to keep Amber safe.

Kanda, Lavi, Bookman, and Lenalee all shifted under Allen's gaze. It felt as if he was looking into their very souls for an explanation of why they arrived, and they knew he probably was with his glare. One Kanda was all too familiar with, having been on the receiving side of that very glare more than once because they saw the world differently than the other. No matter how much that glare was turned on him, he still felt as if he had done something really bad, though he usually shoved that feeling down and tried to ignore it.

"Explain why you are here, now!" Allen demanded, his left-hand twitching as if looking for a fight. He was staring Kanda down now, just challenging him into proving that they were enemies Allen had to dispose of.

Kanda put his hand over Lavi's mouth just as Lavi went to talk. "Silence, Usagi." He commanded then looked at Lenalee. "I will talk to the Moyashi and see if we can find a place to stay for a bit. Johnny and Bookman won't last much longer the way we are going."

Lenalee and Lavi both looked at Kanda and nodded, going over and taking care of the two mentioned comrades. Allen looked closely at Johnny and Bookman and realized that the white he saw wasn't clothing but bandages, closer inspection of the group showed that what Allen first thought was dirt was actually dried blood, as the wounds were still bleeding slowly even though they were being tended to. Allen then realized that they were attacked by something and by looking at the others in the group, he knew they barely survived the encounter.

"What happened?" Allen asked. His eyes were back on Kanda, softening slightly after seeing the conditions of the others. "Tell me what attacked you and where."

Kanda sighed, and sat down cross-legged, motioning for Allen to do the same, only slightly relaxing as Allen sat across from him, Amber standing behind Allen to his left. "Let me start with why we are not with the Black Order first." Allen nodded, motioning for Kanda to go ahead. "After you ran off with the Noah and disappeared, Johnny and Lenalee wanted to come after you and find you. I only found out about everything when I went back, only to be pulled into an empty room and told just what Lena and Johnny were planning, and then being roped into the plan with a few choice words from them both. Lavi and Bookman were missing, captured by some of the Noah as we found out when we all found Lavi and Bookman on the run. Lena told them what we were doing and Lavi and Bookman followed us, also worried about you." Allen let a small smile grace his face at that small hint that Kanda was worried about him. "So we started following the only trail Johnny had, he dubbed it 'Allen's Debt' and we went around asking people about if they had seen you and if you wiped the debt clean with them."

Allen paled. "You went to all the places I had debt? What is wrong with you people?!"

Kanda smirked. "We went to all of them before we hit this forest, and I must say Moyashi~, you should wear more dresses on a daily basis."

Allen sputtered curses at Kanda, stating that it wasn't his idea, they only had the female attire left when he went to clear the debt. Lavi made the off comment of wondering what Kanda and Allen were talking about, Lena dulled his curiosity slightly by stating firmly 'If you saw the picture and made comments on it before Allen, you would be lying headless and no one would be able to stop Allen.'

Allen gathered himself again before going back to looking for all the world like he was interviewing the dullest person in the world. "I understand how you came to the forest, but how did you enter this land? No one should have found this place if they weren't born here."

Kanda and the others froze and looked at Allen. "What?"

Amber cleared her throat, stepping to stand beside Allen instead of behind him. "Actually Nii-san there is another way." Everyone looked at Amber, all eyes asking her to explain. Amber sat down, looking older than she really was as she spoke. "They may not have been born here in the Kingdom of Malicka, but they could have the blood of one running through their veins. If I am right about the history lesson from Uncle last week, which I always am, many of our people have left our Kingdom to explore, sending letters back to us telling about everything they found. One such was a woman who gave birth to the current Bookman. The others could have ancestors from our Kingdom or parents who left to find a life outside. Remember, almost everyone in this particular town has left to find better lives after the Millennium Earl and his Akuma started attacking our towns in force."

Allen nodded, a sheepish grin on his face. "I forgot Uncle's lesson, sorry." Then Allen's eyes snapped back to Kanda. "But Kanda wasn't born like the others, he was created. How is he here?"

Amber and Allen both looked deep in thought, pondering it over. Allen was about to speak to dismiss this issue for now, when he felt a slight breeze, even though the breeze didn't exist. He jumped to his feet looking around the clearing. Kanda and Amber rose with him, both looking at him with knowing looks. They both knew why Allen would act this way in the middle of a conversation, something was wrong.

Then Allen felt in his mind a tug from the North, and froze.

"Amber," Allen said, sounding older and more in charge. Amber, catching the tone change, stood straighter and at attention.

"Sir!" She shouted, all youth dropping from her features, going into what the group across from them could only recall seeing from the CROW's, a soldier's face.

"North village," Allen stated. "Evacuate the citizens and destroy the enemy. Our army is already moving to assist."

"Yes, sir!" Amber said then headed straight for one of the five tallest trees.

"Amber!" Allen called, voice softer and concern evident in his face as he turned to face her. "Your safety is the top priority. If it gets too dangerous, get out of there and shatter the portals. Do you understand?"

Amber stopped before turning around and flashing the brightest and realist smile the six have ever seen. "I will return, Nii-san. I'm not the princess for nothing after all!"

Then she went through the only door on the tree. Allen watched the door Amber went through, wanting nothing more than to dash after her and do the job himself, to keep her out of the battle and safe, but he couldn't. Allen could feel the cracks forming through his connection with the barrier holding the Kingdom safe from the outside world. He had no choice but to try and fix the holes being created before it was too late. There was only one thing Allen could do to help Amber, and it was dangerous for him and the other two who helped him with it.

Allen looked at the former exorcists, a grim look falling on his face. "You all can still fight right?"

The question stopped the small group before Allen and pissed Kanda off. Of course, Kanda and the others could still fight, the thing that attacked them only got two of them into dangerous conditions.

"Che," Kanda stated, glaring straight at Allen. "We can fight, Bookman and Johnny cannot."

Allen nodded and walked towards the tallest tree in the little town, stopping before the door and turning around. He scanned the area and nodded.

"Bookman and Johnny will be safe in this town," Allen stated, walking back over to the group. "Come I will take you to the med tree." The group followed Allen through the town and stopped in front of the fattest tree. "This is the med tree or the hospital if you will. If you say you're a friend of Allen Walker they will treat you for free. This is a privilege given only to those who are friends of the royal family of this Kingdom. Ask all the questions you want from the nurses and doctors, they will tell you everything they know. If you wish to get answers straight from me, wait for my return." Bookman and Johnny nodded and walked into the building. Allen looked at the three before him. "Follow me."

Again they walked through the town and ended up in front of the tallest tree, Allen stopping before the door. He suddenly yelped in pain and held his head, groaning in misery. "We need to hurry. Father and Uncle will already be inside the chamber preparing for what must happen. You three will come with me. What I am about to do is dangerous and last time this happened Father, Uncle, and I almost died if Amber hadn't shown up to help us."

Before anyone could ask what Allen meant, he was already going through the door. The others had no choice but to follow if they wanted answers. Inside the tree was a small chamber with a door standing in the middle. It was decorated with golden swirls and silver stars, giving the dark oak door an elegant look. Allen went to the door and turned the knob, opening the door.

Now Kanda was used to crazy things happening, but when given a door standing in the middle of an empty room he was beyond confused at what Allen was doing opening a door that would lead nowhere if it didn't collapse. What he didn't expect was the door to dissolve into a glowing white portal with various shades brighter and darker swirling inside of it.

"This leads to our destination, come." Allen calmly stated, not caring if he just broke the three's minds with the portal. Snapping out of it, all three followed Allen through the portal, the door returning as they passed through.

**~DGRAYMAN~**

Kanda was the first one of the three to open his eyes and regain consciousness, staring right at Allen as he hummed and spoke to the walls of the hallway they were now inside. Lavi's groan caught Allen's attention and Kanda looked over at Lavi to see him helping Lena stand slowly. Kanda then used the wall to raise himself.

Allen looked them over and nodded. "She says she's sorry she knocked you three out as you went through the portal. She thought you were enemies."

"It's fine buddy," Lavi groaned before Allen's words sunk in. "Wait?! SHE?!"

The three looked around then stared at Allen, the only girl was Lenalee and she was also knocked out. Who was he talking about?

"Really though," Allen said, an adorable pout on his face. "I lead them in, so why would you attack? You know I would die before leading enemies to you." Allen paused and smiled. "Honestly, you're just like my parents and Amber. So overprotective and acting before thinking." Allen then frowned and glared, his eyes directed at the wall. "You don't get that privilege yet. I'm not looking to extend the family."

At this point, the three looking at Allen were afraid of his mental health. Yeah, the fourteenth was living inside him, but a female? Kanda was just about to recommend seeing someone for the voice in Allen's head, when the wall extended and punched Allen on the shoulder, like an old buddy.

"Yeah, yeah," Allen said, patting the extended wall. "You're my best friend, I tell you everything. Now we need to get to your core, bring us down."

Lavi was the first to speak. "What is going on Allen? Who are you talking to?"

Allen smiled. "I'm talking to the castle. She is alive because of the magic producing cube in her core. That's where we are heading to fix the current problem."

Kanda watched Allen carefully. "And what are we going to do there, Moyashi?"

"Protect me, father, and Uncle as we reinforce the barrier protecting our kingdom."

Kanda smirked. "So you can't protect yourself? And you need us to do it? Should have just told us your incompetent."

The wall Kanda was leaning on wrapped around his neck and started to squeeze. Kanda tried to get free, his hands scratching uselessly at the wall around his neck, Lavi and Lena were freaking out both trying to remove the wall from Kanda's neck as well, but Allen just sighed with a bored and tired look on his face. It was almost as if this was normal for Allen.

"Okay," Allen said. "I can protect myself, but what is going to happen will need my full attention, I cannot fight or take my mind off of the process. You will protect me, or I will let her kill you. Do you understand?"

Kanda gave a thumbs up unable to do anything else and the wall retracted, letting him go. Kanda stumbled, coughing and gasping for breath.

"What was that, Moyashi-chan?" Lavi asked, keeping Kanda standing upright until he could breathe again.

"She is protective of the only heir this kingdom has. Excuse her. You can't get away with anything harming me while we are inside her walls." The wall behind Allen split apart and slid into the sides, like an elevator door. "Here we are. Speak not to father and Uncle. Speak only to each other while defending us." And with that, Allen turned and walked into a large crystal pavilion overlooking a dark and rotting woods.

The crystal pavilion had no walls, just more crystal pillars holding up the roof, but the crystal was not see-through. In the middle of the pavilion sat a pillar of water, kept in place by unseen forces. Inside the water floated a young woman dressed in a pure white sleeveless dress that covered her entire body. Before her and between her hands floated a beautiful light pink cube, giving the surroundings a pinkish tint. Four chairs rested around the water pillar, two already had occupants while the other two were empty. Allen walked over to the chair closest to the group and between the two men.

"Sorry I'm late father, uncle," Allen said softly while taking his seat. "The three with me are going to protect us. Amber is taking care of the enemies as we speak."

The man to Allen's left smiled gently, his eyes closed. "You're here and you took care of the problem as a true prince and general would. It is fine, don't you agree, Nea?"

The man to Allen's right smiled softly, opening his eyes to show their pure golden coloration. "He is here. He is safe. I must say my nephew is more efficient than you, Mana. Now enough talking. We must get to work."

The man to Allen's left, now named Mana, smiled and opened his eyes to show equally golden eyes like Nea, and looked at the three. "Questions will have to wait till after this is over and we have rested. You three are to kill anything that comes into this pavilion beside me, Nea, Allen, and Amber. No one but us has the authority to come into this room unless they arrive with one of us, so anything that enters is an enemy. They get in when the barrier is falling. We will start as soon as all of us have closed our eyes. If any of us dies or loses concentration the entire kingdom will fall and all hell will break loose on Earth as this Kingdom is destroyed."

He waited till the three exorcists each nodded and walked to stand closer to the three of them, where they could see if anything was coming. Mana then nodded to Allen and Nea, and they all closed their eyes, glowing lines linking them to the water pillar before the soft glow began to encompass them as if encasing them in a shield. They could tell guard duty had begun.


	2. The Explanation of Royalty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to bad fight scenes and things that make no sense. Just roll with it guys! Enjoy!

_ Family Matters _

_ Chapter 2 _

_ The Explanation of Royalty _

_ ~DGRAYMAN~ _

As the light blue glow encompassed the four chairs and the three in the chairs, Kanda looked out over the woods taking in just how bad they were compared to the pavilion they were standing in. The trees closest to him were slumping and covered in dark molded moss, slowly peeling the bark off of the trees under its own weight. The trees themselves were peeling and splintering under the pressure of the moss and the rotting leaves and branches. Overall the trees stood out in an ominous way that caused Kanda to only be able to compare them to the cover of one of those horror books Lavi had fallen asleep on in the Black Order before he had no time for casual reading. The woods also seemed to have a visible dark aura surrounding it, almost as if refusing to let any light in. It was a horribly dark contrast to the bright and pure crystal path leading to the woods and branching off to lead to what looked like a beach down below them. It was almost like the pavilion was meant to be a lighthouse overlooking the ocean behind them, and a guard tower to watch the woods behind it.

And was it just Kanda, or was the world far too quiet for this to be considered nature instead of a picture?

Lavi was the first to speak, breaking the unnaturally sickening silence. "Did anyone tell us what we were up against? Or did I just tune that part out?"

Kanda was about to 'che' at Lavi's stupidity, but then he realized that not one of the three actually said what they were up against, only to kill anything that came close. In fact, Mana referred to what they had to kill as 'they' and nothing else.

It brought too many alarm bells to Kanda's mind. What if this was actually a trap that was set up to kill them by the Noah? That Noah named Road was able to force people into a different dimension to mess with them and then kill them from what Lavi and Lena had admitted while they were traveling. This could be some sick trick by the Noah, that they hadn't actually found Allen safe and sound, but that the Noah girl had found them and was going to kill them slowly.

Lenalee saw something first, snapping her out of similar dark thoughts and back to the situation at hand. It was just a small shifting of the trees farther back, so she ignored it, until it kept going, coming closer and closer. "Something is out there boys!"

Kanda and Lavi were at her side instantly, ready to fight whatever was coming. All three looked around quickly and realized that the only way up was to climb the cliff facing the ocean behind them or to go up the crystal path they were all standing before. A quick glance at each other and they were confident that they could keep everything away and do it quickly, that was until the roar.

Loud enough to shake the ground and bring fear to all three, the roar was almost like a mix of the screams of tortured souls and dying animals. Kanda, Lenalee, and Lavi shared a look that basically says 'that-thing-needs-to-stay-the-fuck-away', until roars everywhere answered the first roar, all sounding just as horrifying and disturbing as the first. Kanda could see the other two shaking in fear, and they hadn't even seen the things yet, just heard them.

The ground shook again as a tall, dark figure stumbled out. It stumbled closer and closer until the three could see it clearly. The thing was rotting, its flesh peeling from its body, showing muscle and bone. Moss and mold were growing on the body and near the wounds. As it got closer Kanda could only think that this thing was as big as a fully grown bear standing up, and it was on all fours at the moment. The sudden click of metal on the crystal path brought Kanda's eyes down to its feet, where he paled. Instead of feet, the thing had four human hands, but instead of fingers, it had claws as long and as sharp as Mugen attached to the rotting hands. The thing stopped and sat back suddenly, exposing its chest, and at the center of its chest rested a giant eyeball watching them. The eyeball was blood red and surrounded by scaring rotting flesh. Kanda heard Lavi and Lenalee gag and hurl at the sight of the creature. Kanda couldn't blame them, it was repulsive. Then the smell hit them, and Kanda was hurling as well. Death, decay, puss, and anything else that can be mentioned with dead decaying bodies was all he could smell from the monster. It was too much, he wanted this thing gone.

The monstrous creature just sat there, watching them with its giant eye, until it turned its head fully around to look behind it with its slightly smaller eyes. Kanda looked behind the creature as well and almost threw up again. Behind the hideous creature were more of the monstrous things, only these ones had eyes in different places, were in different stages of decay, and some even had bone wings that Kanda had no doubt could allow the things to fly. This was just sickening. But then Kanda saw something else, beyond the creatures, on the horizon. The trees were healing and the woods were slowly turning into fully healthy and thriving woodlands.

The creatures apparently didn't like the forest being healed as they started to stumble closer and closer, blood dripping from the open wounds on their bodies and staining the ground below them, their growls sounding like screams.

"Get ready! Those things are coming!" Kanda said, trying not to puke up his guts at the horrid sight before him. This was too much for even our stoic samurai, who was used to fighting Akuma and having them explode and turn to ash when destroyed. He found even after all that death and destruction that the sight and smell of them was too much and he couldn't imagine being closer to those things to fight them with Mugen.

Lavi made his hammer grow larger and quickly swung it at the closest monster, and when it hit, the monster exploded into a mass of bloody tissue and bones. But what made the three shiver again was the soft voices that drifted from the horrid mess, sighing in relief and thanking them.

"Okay," Lavi started, watching the things. "It looks like their bodies are really weak and will be easy to kill from a distance. I'll take care of the ones in the back and coming from the forest, Lena you be quick and smash the ones on the path, Yuu-chan is sure to take care of any that get ten feet from the pavilion. We shouldn't be in the way of the others if we do this. I don't want to know how capable those things are with their claws, be extremely careful of those blades." Lenalee and Kanda nodded, Lenalee taking off and quickly cutting down the ones on the path. Instantly, bloody tissues and bones went flying as the monsters were killed. Lavi used his hammer to get on top of the pavilion to end those farthest away, and also to act as a spotter for the other sides. Kanda took up his position close to the shell that hid the three inside and got ready to leap into action and end any that got too close to the pavilion.

Kanda was watching the others kill the monsters, the bloody mess that the path was becoming was enough for Kanda to really never want to see these things again. Not to mention the smell was constantly getting worse the more they killed. The clicks were reminding him of the thing that attacked them two months ago, only that thing was harder to kill and took all three beating on it to drive it away. Kanda was watching the path looking for any creature that got past Lena when he heard a growl and clicking coming from behind him. He swung around to see one of the creatures watching him from the other side of the pavilion. This one was different though and Kanda knew it would be trouble.

The creature standing on the other side of the pavilion wasn't rotting like the others, no it was scarred, but not rotting. It had five small eyes on its head and two larger ones on its arms. Its claws were flexing on the crystal floor of the pavilion, its attention fully on Kanda. It opened its mouth in a sickening human-like grin and then Kanda almost threw up when he realized what these things were. They were giant bears and humans formed together, blades replacing fingers, toes, and teeth. The skin of this one was bulging and rolling, almost as if something inside wanted to come out. Kanda had a very bad feeling about this creature.

"Hello again," The creature spoke, its voice sounding like three men and two women speaking from the same body at the same time. Kanda got into position, ready to lunge into an attack on the creature before him. This thing was not going to live long enough to get closer to the center.

The thing chuckled. "You can't kill me yet, dragon boy. I come with a warning to you. This kingdom holds more dark secrets then anyone will ever tell. When the time comes and the truth is revealed, you will have to make a decision, to kill everything you have grown to love, or to allow yourself to be swallowed into the darkness surrounding this kingdom."

Kanda growled, readying for an attack. "What the fuck does that mean, you fucking monster?!"

The thing just chuckled again and disappeared leaving Kanda to stare at where it was. Lavi and Lena landed beside Kanda and stared at where the thing was just seconds ago.

"The forest is fully healed and everything is dead," Lavi said. Lena proceeded to fall, collapsing to the ground in exhaustion. "What the hell was that thing? What the hell were those things?!"

The sound of a door opening and sliding walls caught all three's attention. They all turned to see what it was, ready to kill.

What they saw was a door appearing out of nowhere and opening to expose the hall they had been in before they entered the pavilion. Stepping through the door was Amber and a beautiful lady, both with concern on their faces.

"Mana!" The woman called, running over to the glowing shell and placing her hand on it. "Mana please I need you to listen to me! Don't stop building the barrier! You need to give up the northern village, they have overrun it! Please! Don't let them inside the barrier!"

"Mom," Amber said, pulling the woman from the shell and onto the floor with her, holding her sobbing form. "I know it hurts to have seen the carnage and the destruction, but please understand. Father will have already seen it. You need to stay calm for him right now. Just calm down."

Kanda watched as Lena and Lavi went over to the two females to help comfort Amber's mom. Kanda took this time to examine Amber and her mother. Amber didn't have many changes since he saw her who knows how long ago, only a few cuts and bruises on her exposed skin, her shirt was torn in some places, but she was fine besides that. Her katana was moved from her hip to her back, her belt now across her chest diagonally. The woman was a different story. She was in a golden dress that was torn apart and looked like she had fought in the floor-length dress. Her dress, though its base was gold, had dark purple swirls in the skirt that slowly got lighter as it came up, ending in white at her waist then slowly darkening into a dark silver as it reached her long draping sleeves. It was hard for him to tell what she had on other than her dress because of Amber, Lena, and Lavi covering any other detail, but Kanda noted the woman had long flowing pure snow-white hair that slowly turned into a soft silver as it came closer to the bottom. Her hair was currently messed up completely.

"Mom," Amber said softly. "It's almost over okay? They are close to finishing. She said so." The woman nodded, holding Amber tightly, letting Lena and Lavi close to comfort her. "We just have to wait now okay? Everything is going to be okay."

**~DGRAYMAN~**

Kanda sat cross-legged on the ground, watching the small group next to the shell, hiding the three inside. It had already been twenty fucking minutes since Amber said they had to wait, and Kanda was getting extremely pissed off. Kanda sighed softly, focusing his attention back to the conversation Lavi and Lena were having with Amber and the woman now named Ellenia.

From what he learned, Allen had come stumbling through the barrier, bloody and injured a little under three months ago. Amber saw him while she was out walking with her father, Mana, and mother, Ellenia, and quickly went to get her parents. He was so beaten and bloody that they couldn't tell where his wounds started and ended, so they brought him into the castle and got him treated by the best doctors the kingdom had to offer. He was asleep and recovering for two weeks before he opened his eyes to see four people watching him. Ellenia didn't say how, but the fourth person watching over Allen was Nea, the Noah that was inside Allen. Amber couldn't fill that gap in either, only Mana and the castle knew.

Lavi started asking about the things they fought but Amber shushed him instantly, her head whipping to the shell. Everyone looked at it, Kanda stood up and started walking over as he saw the shell was disappearing. Everyone was braced for seeing the three again, but what they didn't expect was to see all three yawning and standing up slowly.

Nea and Mana were in similar clothes, formal wear button-up shirts with black slacks and black dress shoes. The only difference between the two was Mana had his shirt tucked in and buttoned fully, while Nea was untucked and had half his buttons done on his shirt. Mana's dark brown hair was naturally decorated with red highlights and fell untamed framing his face in soft waves, while the rest of his hair was put into a ponytail in the middle of his head and cascaded like a waterfall down to his waist. Nea had shorter spiky hair that was a darker brown than Mana's, his hair falling into his face and covering his eyes occasionally. Both had soft almost female-like features on their faces. The only other difference between the two was the skin tone, Mana being paler like Allen, Nea being darker like the Noah.

"I need a nap," Nea and Allen said at the same time. Nea visibly perked up at that and looked at Allen. Allen felt Nea's gaze and quickly walked over to Kanda, only to snuggle into Kanda's side.

"Watch over me as I nap," Allen said tiredly, looking up at Kanda with pure innocent eyes. "Please, Kanda?" Kanda found himself nodding and sitting down, pulling his Moyashi into his lap. Why he did this was beyond him. But to see Nea getting mad at him for holding the Moyashi, now he found that was entertaining for reasons he didn't want to think of.

Kanda could tell Nea was fuming, but only his golden eyes showed his emotions. His face was passive and calm, but a bit tired.

Mana had collapsed to the ground beside Amber and Ellenia, sighing in content as Ellenia started to rub his arm and hold him. Nea landed just a bit away from the three, closer to Allen and Kanda, where he proceeded to fall onto his back and look at the ceiling. Kanda could see that all three of them looked like they just fought for months without rest.

"You," Came the sudden threatening voice. Kanda snapped his head to the speaker, only to flinch as he met Mana's pure golden eyes filled with unrestrained rage. "Move your hand off my son's ass."

Kanda, unaware that he put his hand in that position, repositioned both his hands just to be safe, so he was holding Allen's knees and upper arm, curling Allen closer to Kanda's chest. Mana smiled so brightly after that, Kanda almost thought he had imagined the rage and anger until he saw Lena and Lavi shaking slightly. Mana nodded in consent and rested his head back on Ellenia's shoulder.

"What do you want to know first?"

Lavi, snapping out of his trance, quickly responded. "Why do you call Allen son?"

Mana chuckled softly. "Because that's what he is, my beloved baby boy. Would you like to hear the story, or do you want to ask more questions first?"

"Tell us the story, please," Lena said, polite and curious.

Mana nodded. "Sixteen years ago my wife, Ellenia, gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Allen. I loved him as soon as I saw him, but I was scared when I saw his arm. I knew innocence had infected my child from somewhere while in the womb. I never thought less of Allen or my wife, even though I am a Noah, but it hurt me to know that if the Black Order or the other Noah's were to ever find out they would hunt down my son, to recruit or kill. So we made a deal that we wouldn't leave the castle without Allen until he was old enough to wield his innocence and protect himself if we had to leave him alone for any reason. That all changed two months after his first birthday. We thought everything was fine and our son was still in his crib beside us, until the morning when Ellenia found a note instead of our son. It read that our son had been taken and wouldn't return to us unless we gave up the throne. We loved our baby Allen, but someone who would kidnap and threaten an innocent defenseless baby didn't deserve to be king, so I left to go find my baby boy, leaving Ellenia to rule the kingdom. I found him six years later, under the name Red and working for a horrid man named Cosmos, so I joined the stupid circus of hell to protect my baby boy until we got close enough to one of the portals to go back home. But that plan was foiled quickly as we never went close to any of the portals or hidden villages. I got tired of traveling with the bastard three years later after realizing he was doing it on purpose, he knew who I was and where I wanted to go."

Mana sighed, eyes clouded with sad memories. "A year before the accident, I ran into Cross, a friend from childhood, well Nea's anyway. I told Cross everything I could about Allen, told Cross to follow us and make sure we got back to our Kingdom safely, but if anything was to happen to me, Cross was to take Allen away and train him till I could return and get him back. What I wasn't expecting was to be cornered by the Millennium Earl himself and killed, right in front of Allen. I was the only one Allen had at that time that he could remember loving him, so I expected him to grieve over me, but not for the Earl to appear before Allen before Cross did, and even though I don't blame Allen for what he did, it's clear that he was broken because of it. It took me almost five years to reform my body and be able to move again. I was walking with Amber and Ellenia for the fifth time just to be sure I was fully healed and back when Amber found Allen in our borders bleeding and injured."

"I was keeping the boy alive along with his innocence," Nea stated, rolling onto his stomach, eyes watching Kanda. "I was able to take over once he was stabilized and told Mana exactly who the boy was, and in a week I had my body back. Five days later Allen woke up."

Mana nodded. "Yes. We explained everything to him, and made it clear to him he was home with his family and safe."

Lavi looked confused. "So if you spent your time after Allen was taken looking for him, how did you have Amber?"

A soft giggle filled the air. "That's simple. I have the ability to transport myself anywhere I want, so I went to Mana to check on him one night. He told me he found Allen and was trying to return to me. I spent time wrapped in Mana's arms, holding Allen close, until the years we were apart got to us, and we had passionate sex in the middle of a clearing in a forest. I went back to the castle and got loaded with work the next day, and when I was free again I tried to go see Mana again, but couldn't and I realized with joy and despair that I was having another child. I was happy beyond words, but the fact that Mana had been with Allen for a year and hadn't come back tipped me off that something was wrong, and I knew my husband and son wouldn't return before Amber's birth."

Lavi nodded at that answer, blushing furiously at Ellenia's bluntness about the events.

"So you and Nea are Noah, Mana?" Lena asked softly.

Mana nodded. "Correct. I am the Noah of Infinite Creation, anything I can imagine, I can create. Nea is the Magician, as the others call him. He can control the original ark and is perhaps the only Noah who could kill the other Noah's leaving only the earl left."

"I didn't kill you though," Came Nea's tired reply. Kanda looked at Nea to see he was trying to stay awake to glare at Kanda, but as his eyes dropped and his gaze landed on Allen, Kanda saw lust and desire pass before Nea was out like a light.

"Why does he do that?" Kanda suddenly asked, interrupting Lavi and Mana's conversation on how Mana and Nea were recreated/reborn.

Amber suddenly stood and walked over to Nea, pulled her sword out, and lowered it to the back of Nea's neck. "Get your thoughts and dreams of my Nii-san out of your dirty head, before your heads roll."

Kanda and the others watched as Nea trembled in his sleep, muttering 'I'll be good, don't cut me' after Amber's warning. Amber 'che'd' at that, stomping on Nea's back, before walking over and resting against Kanda and Allen. It was an adorable but also terrifying event, as Kanda realized this girl, this bright and cheerful girl was almost like him and Allen combined when she wanted to be.

"Amber," Mana started carefully, very scared of his daughter and this side of her. "What was that about?"

"It's the only way to deal with perverted Uncles who only want your Nii-san's innocence," Amber stated like it was common knowledge.

Everyone awake sweatdropped at that, looking at the girl who was now curled against Allen in Kanda's lap. Later when asked about if he was blushing looking at the two curled in his lap, he would deny it and try to kill everyone who asked, because no one needed to know that looking down at the two made Kanda think about if this is how his Moyashi would curl up with their children. Of course, that was after his shock about Amber's behavior had faded.

Mana, cleared his throat loudly, bringing all attention back to him. "Well, I think it's time for proper introductions. I am Mana Walker, King of Malicka. This is Ellenia, my Queen. Then we have my children, Prince Allen and Princess Amber. And of course, my brother, Nea Walker, who may or may not hold the title of Lord, he never said if he wanted it or not. Welcome, travelers, to the Kingdom of Malicka, our hidden home."

"Daddy?" Asked a tired voice from Kanda's lap. "Can my friends stay with us?"

"If they want to," Mana replied. "You know we can't make people stay with us, it's rude."

Allen snuggled further into Kanda's chest, muttering a simple 'You better stay with me BaKanda' so Kanda could hear, before falling back asleep.

"We couldn't leave even if we wanted to Moyashi," Kanda replied softly. "We gave up everything to be with you again, you don't have to worry about us leaving."

Amber suddenly shot up out of Kanda's lap, making Kanda jump slightly at the sudden movement, of course so did everyone else but Allen and Nea who were passed out. "Father! I forgot! Tyki Mikk and around a hundred Akuma were left alive when I had to break and abandon the North village! I'm so sorry."

Mana frowned. "So he finally started to send the Noah after us." Mana looked at Amber and smiled. "It's fine, my dear. You and our people are safe thanks to your actions."

"Mana," Ellenia started. "Allen can't teach Amber anymore about swordsmanship. We need to get her a new teacher, one that wields a katana like her, and isn't a fake master like the others."

"I can teach her!"

All awake eyes fell on Lavi, everyone doubting that Lavi could do anything to help Amber.

"Che," Kanda said. "I'm going to stay with Moyashi for the night. Come get me when you normally start training, Amber. I need to know where the training area is."

Amber smiled at Kanda and stood up. "Come on! I'll take you to Nii-san's room! Bye Father and Mother!"

With those last words, Amber dragged Kanda into the elevator hallway, and out of the pavilion, smiling with pure joy and happiness.

" _ Nii-san has such a loving and hot boyfriend! I'm so jealous! _ " Amber thought as the doors slid shut and they started to ascend, Kanda unaware of the young girl's thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is long, 4k+ words long, but it should clear up all questions about how Allen is the Prince of this place, but now along with what the monsters actually are and what the creature meant are more questions that won’t be answered for a while, as it takes a bit for the group to actually get anywhere in helping stop the seemingly endless hordes of them later.
> 
> And don't worry Mana's abilities are going to be easier to understand when I write them in action. But for now, let's leave Mana's abilities with this: he needs a pure gemstone, a picture, and a womb-like object to do what he does to make bodies for him and Nea. And as he hinted at, Mana can use his powers while he has no body, but only as long as someone he has attached himself to is still alive and is able to gather what he needs so he can use that connection to bring himself back with the proper materials.
> 
> So, how do you like the story so far? Is it good? Are you trying to piece together the mystery and solve it as I'm writing? You don't have a lot of information to go off of right now, but I promise things will start falling into place and finding its place as the story progresses. Like the summary says "Face paced Romance, slow-paced Mystery."
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Look forward to the next one coming out soon!


	3. The Mystery Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short version, Amber's past is kinda dark and you don't have to read this one or the next chapter if you don't want to. This chapter is Amber's past and kinda what the monsters were from the last chapter but only what they understand from what Amber has seen. The chapter after this is basically a Yullen sex scene.
> 
> I leave this warning and message for everyone who has a weak stomach for unethical human experimentation and child cruelty. If you do not like these topics then please skip over them or just not read this story anymore because the monsters that are caused by these are going to become big focal points and we are going to dive further into the insanity that was the creation of these monsters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter is going to be focused on two different events that happen at the same time. What happens with Kanda, Allen, and Amber. What happens with the others still in the pavilion. The pavilion scene will be first, as the second part is going to hold a slight start of yullen hotness.
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine. It belongs to a wonderful person named Katsura Hoshino. If you think I am Hoshino-senpai, you are wrong, and I would never steal this from her. (Well I would probably find Hoshino-senpai and force Yullen into being Cannon. But I can't.)
> 
> Claimer: everything plot-wise, detail-wise, and fantasy-wise that makes up the story surrounding senpai's characters, belong to me.

_Family Matters_

_Chapter 3_

_The Mystery Begins_

_~DGRAYMAN~_

Lavi watched as Amber, Kanda, and Allen disappeared behind the door before he turned to Mana and Ellenia. He quickly took note of how Mana and Ellenia looked nervous and scared to see their son and daughter leave with Kanda, even if Allen and Amber were comfortable with him.

_Stranger danger, am I right? _Lavi chuckled in his head.

"King Mana," Lena said softly. "Allen and Amber are in good hands. Kanda may look cold-hearted and indifferent, but he will die before letting harm come to those he's protecting."

"Not to mention Yuu-chan would never let anything happen to Moyashi-chan!" Lavi exclaimed, a smug smile gracing his face until a katana landed from above almost castrating him but missing by a hair. Lavi's face fell as he recognized the katana as Mugen, Kanda's Innocence, and most cherished possession.

"Shut the fuck up, Baka Usagi!" Kanda's voice rang from above as Mugen sunk through the floor.

Everyone was silent and still, shock holding them in place. Until Mana and Ellenia laughed like what happened was the best thing in the world.

"What the hell happened?!" Lavi and Lena shouted together, waking Nea who looked at them confused.

"Why are you laughing?" Nea mumbled. "Why are you shouting?" Nea looked around, clearly confused. "Where's Amber and Sex- I mean Allen?"

Mana sighed and, in the most kingly manner he could, crawled over to Nea and smashed his head into the ground.

"Now then," cue the anime sweatdrop on everyone but Mana and Nea. "Let me explain what happened. Castela," pointing to the woman in the water pillar. "Is the protector and reason this castle stands. She can create doorways anywhere asked as long as she deems the reason appropriate. You also can't lie to her while inside the castle walls, she can see inside your heads. But she never tells anyone what she sees, not even the first King could get her to tell him."

Lavi paled and looked at Castela, fear running through his one visible eye. "So she can see into people's pasts?"

"No," Mana said, catching Lavi's attention again. "Just what you're thinking at the time inside the walls." Mana then smiled gently. "Don't worry, Bookman Jr. No one will see your past, not even Castela unless you think about it."

Lavi visibly relaxed after that, his bright smile returning to his face as he looked at Nea, who at the time was face first in a small crater letting out small mumbles about anything from 'Mana doesn't know his own strength' to 'Why does he smash me into the ground?'

Mana shifted, pulling Nea's head into his lap and petting his hair, before looking at Lavi again. "You want to know many things about this place, many things that even I don't know. Castela won't tell anyone but the reincarnation of the first king. And unfortunately for us, all documentation about how the first king looks is long gone, so we don't even know if the king has been reborn yet."

Lavi nodded. He then tilted his head to the side and looked over at the path, remembering the monstrous creatures. "What were those monsters?"

Ellenia slid closer to Mana and seemed to have her happiness disappear almost instantly. Mana looked down at Nea, both refusing to look anywhere but the floor beside Mana's legs while both shifting uncomfortably. All three looked like they wanted to hide something but knew that they couldn't.

"King Mana," Lena started. "What is so bad about those things that you would try to hide what they are even after we had to fight them to protect you?"

Nea sighed, and while sitting up, carefully arranging himself to look at the two across from him. "We don't know what they are, Lenalee. All we know is what Amber told us, well Ellenia anyway."

Ellenia visibly shifted and twisted, as if she didn't want to remember what her daughter had told her. She hesitated for so long that Lavi was about to push her into telling them the truth because they deserved to at least know as much about those things as possible when Ellenia finally began speaking.

"Three years ago when Amber was five, she had a habit of running down here to spend time with Castela and explore the woods. I can't hear Castela like my children and husband, so when Castela made a sign on the wall in front of me saying to come down to her pavilion and drop everything, I did. I left the representatives of the different races waiting in the throne room for me to show as I ran to the only room Castela can move without killing someone. When I arrived down here Amber was curled in Castela's arms in the water pillar, and when I got closer she leapt into my arms and cried. Twenty-four people were with her in the pavilion, all in different conditions from slightly cut and bruised to..." Ellenia stopped, having to collect herself. Her eyes had a haunted look to them and Lavi and Lena understood that the sight had scarred Ellenia. Knowing what it had to have done to Amber was horrifying to even think of for them both. "Some of the people didn't have arms and legs, others were missing an arm or two, or maybe a leg or two. They were malnourished and terrified. They wouldn't tell me what had happened, only that a group of mad scientists had set up shop in the mountains beyond the forest, and there they tortured and experimented with those who were caught."

Mana held his wife, rubbing her shoulders and back in soothing circles. "Amber told her mother what she had found in a dark testing room. Creatures as big as fully grown adult male bears, rotting and bleeding, clawing at the floor to get out. We don't know what she did to them or what happened to the scientists, Amber and the survivors never told us, but we could piece together that the creatures were created with the body parts of the survivors and with actual bears or the DNA of them. Amber did tell her mother one other thing about the horror she had to go through."

Nea sighed, and shifted so he could wrap an arm around both his brother and sister-in-law. He looked back at Lavi and Lena. This was clearly a very hard thing for them to remember and talk about without becoming emotional. Nea looked close to breaking down himself, but he was holding himself together better than Mana and Ellenia. "According to what Amber had told her mother, she had found sixty people in that place. She had sobbed for hours about how she didn't want to do it, but she had to, she had to protect the people who were there unwillingly, the prisoners if you will. One person, the oldest of the group who survived, told Ellenia what Amber had done and how if Amber hadn't acted none of them would be alive today."

Lavi nodded. He understood perfectly well what Nea had implied and what he meant. He was positive that if Kanda was down here and hearing this he would have lost his self-control, as Kanda was very much against human experimentation and this falls perfectly into the category of Kanda's list of moral wrongs that he holds. Lena was trembling, from remembering what the order had done that she had seen or from hearing there were more twisted people in the world, he wasn't exactly sure. "Amber had to kill them didn't she?"

Ellenia stiffened and finally broke down, her sobs wracking her body as she spoke through them. "She told me how many she had to kill. Those she had killed with her weapon and had gotten their blood on her totaled to four people who had gone crazy from the horrors, ten scientists, and ten guards."

Lavi nodded in thought and then looked confused. "I'm sorry for not dropping this and for making you remember such horrors that you and your daughter had to go through, but I need to know what happened to the other twelve people?"

Mana nodded in understanding as he pulled his sobbing wife into his lap and curled his arms around her protectively. "We don't know. Amber wouldn't tell Ellenia what had happened to the ones that were unaccounted for. Not even Castela could figure out what had happened to the missing twelve."

"They ran ahead and into the holding cells for the experiments," came a soft voice from the side. Amber, who had reentered while no one was paying attention, walked over to her parents and put her hand on her mother in a sign of comfort. "I couldn't go after them, I had to protect the others. I was going to come back for them, I thought they would be fine until I got back, but the screams that came as soon as the door shut proved me wrong."

Lena wanted to go comfort Amber as she heard the young girl's voice begin to crack and waver. "I'm so sorry you had to witness that so young. No one should go through something like that, especially not someone so young and vulnerable."

Amber chuckled, her voice changing into a cold detached monotone. "Well, I'm glad I did. If I didn't, those things would have been developed further and made even stronger, instead of left to breed and rot."

She sighed and looked behind her at Lavi and Lena. "I didn't come right back after I got everyone alive out." Mana and Ellenia looked up in shock, Nea narrowed his eyes at her. This was clearly news to them.

"I told them to hide in the woods and start heading to the glinting light in the distance- which was this pavilion- before I turned around and went back into the laboratory. I had to put the poor souls suffering from the experiments and turned into those monsters to rest, and destroy everything I could find about the experiments that the scientists were conducting in the lab." She looked up at the top of the pavilion, and it was clear on her expression that she still remembered that day clearly.

"I remember being dragged into the cell with four others when I stumbled into the lab by accident. I only found the lab because I decided to go into the mountains instead of sticking to the woods. I remember the way the four in the cell looked at me with fear and pity in their eyes. Fear because they didn't know me and were scared that they might be dragged out while I was dragged in. Pity because I was just another victim, just like them, and they knew my fate was going to be the same as theirs. They didn't think I would save them no matter what I said." Amber's eyes were glazing over as she focused on the past, one that she could see quite clearly even years later. "I wanted to prove them wrong, I wanted to help them, so I activated my Innocence and brought my dagger to me. I broke the cell door and killed the first guard. At first, I was kneeling over beside his body throwing up breakfast, but then I realized I couldn't stay there as the next guard came down and saw what I had done. I killed him quickly, and then I set to work freeing the others. The last cell held the next four I killed in it. They had lost their minds because of what had happened to them and killed the fifth person with them. When I opened the cell I was attacked and I reacted quickly, too quickly now that I'm looking back on it. The four were dead before they left the cell doorway."

Lavi and Lena didn't know what to say. Mana and Ellenia were silent, listening to their daughter talk. Nea was holding her hand and carefully bringing her into his lap, rubbing soothing circles into her arms.

"You don't have to say anymore," Nea said softly. "You can tell us slowly, bit by bit if you want. You don't have to relive that horror again all at once."

Amber didn't hear Nea, or she chose to ignore him, but she seemed to be too far gone into her memories. "I took the thirty-five remaining and made my way carefully around the place, working on how to get out. Three guards found the back of the group and attacked. People fought against them and three were killed before I could kill the three guards. At this point, I had to look like death, covered head to toe in the blood of the guards, and the four that had gone crazy, but the thirty-two remaining people still followed me. I may have been the embodiment of death to my enemies, but I was hope for the poor souls who found themselves held against their will by madmen. So we continued, and soon we had fallen into the wing with all the scientists and the rest of the guards. They had seen what I had done through their monitoring systems and were scared of me, so I demanded the exit, and they pointed to a door. The scientist said it was the exit. I told the people with me to go through first, and one by one they did until I told them to stop and get back to me. I had seen the glint in the eyes of the scientists, and I instinctively knew it was a trap. All but eight were able to get out of the room before the door closed. I was stalking towards the scientists, letting my anger and innocence control me, telling the bastards to let them go, to open the door. They opened a door alright, but it was the door to the cages of the creatures. As the screams started from the room beyond the door, every one of the scientists and guards were falling dead at my feet, the last one falling as the last scream sounded."

Amber chuckled slightly, her eyes darker and almost hollow. Lavi had seen that look on Allen many times, so he dubbed this look Amber's 'dark side.' It also helped that her chuckles sent shivers up everyone's spines and made everyone's hair stand up.

"One of the older members of my group looked around till he found an escape plan and a master key," Amber went on, unaware of how uncomfortable she was making everyone and how her mother had stopped crying and was curling into her father in fear of her own daughter. Amber didn't notice anything around her, it was only her memories and the horrors she was reliving. "He explained why they were important and that the exit was through that room. The others paled at that, the monsters were beyond that door. But after ten minutes of me and him going over every route and every exit we both came to the same horrible conclusion." Amber growled slightly, but it was menacing enough that even Nea had to lean back out of fear, and he was holding her. "The only way to all the exits was through the room meant to hold the monsters, so if they ever got loose everyone was meant to die." Amber looked down at Nea's hand on her arm. She sighed and curled back into Nea's chest, seemingly coming back to herself. "We made a plan. There were three entrances into the room from inside the lab, the doors were built to withstand the onslaught from the monsters, but it was going to eventually give and break down. We needed to get out and we all needed to survive."

Amber closed her eyes and fell quiet, leaning back into Nea and just seemingly listening to his heartbeat. No one wanted to push her into talking again, not when it looked like she had finally fought her way out of her nightmare memories. " It was a simple plan, but it was ours. I would go to one of the other entrances and lure the monsters into fighting with me, while the others stayed in the room and fortified it as best as they could to prevent the monsters from getting into it. We had devised that if the banging stopped but didn't start back up for at least ten minutes, they would come join me in the room and we would escape. But if the banging continued or never stopped they had to figure out a way out without going through the room. Our plan was perfect, the only one in danger if it went as we wanted, was only me, but we never considered that they would have gotten out through the other doors."

"I had turned the corner and ran into the first group of the monstrous horrors they were back then, and I almost lost my arm to one that tried to bite me. I managed to kill them with more difficulty than I wanted and expected. Then the worst thing to happen to a base run by electricity happened. A complete and total blackout. They had gotten into the generator room and had most likely destroyed the generator. All the doors would be easy to peel open for them without the mechanisms to hold them shut without a key or password, all the air circulation was stopped, and it was dark enough where I couldn't see my hand even when I had it on my nose. I backed up using the wall to return to the room with the others. I told them what happened, as they had a backup generator running for the room they were in. Everyone was scared, we all thought we would die down there. There was nothing we could do against things we couldn't see and they couldn't fight. Hell, half the people were holding others up because they didn't have legs! So, we started to think, what could we do to get the monster from the door, get us out, and not alert the others where we were? Answer? We couldn't make one as the door fell under the pressure of the monster banging on it. They screamed and the youngest of the group was pinned under it. I didn't realize what I was doing until I was rolling the things dead body away from the young girl. The poor three-year-old had to witness all that carnage... The door was breached, we had to move."

Amber climbed from her uncle's lap and started to pace in the space between everyone in the pavilion. She looked restless, almost as if she was back in the labs, back in that horrid place that she had escaped from years ago.

The others could only imagine how often Amber would wake up from nightmares of that place, they could only imagine what it must feel like living through that hell even if it was just a few hours. They could only imagine how unsafe and paranoid Amber must have felt afterwards, as if her being back home and safe was just a dream and she would wake up back in those labs to relive that hell.

Ellenia reached out to Amber multiple times as her daughter paced by her, but she never touched her or grabbed her to comfort her, her mind was lost in the thoughts that ran through the minds of the other. Did Amber suffer through this alone for years even after she said it didn't bother her anymore? How could Ellenia have known that Amber was lying all this time even though she was always smiling and laughing and enjoying herself again? How could she have known that this was continuing to haunt her daughter years after when her daughter stopped showing how affected she was by this?

Amber continued, her voice still that cold monotone, unaware of how everyone in the pavilion was yearning to comfort her and erase this part of her past. "Using the light from the doorway, and flares that we found from the emergency kit, we made our way to the door leading to the outer lab. We thought we were safe enough to let the two strongest men start to try and pry the door open, though we were soon proven wrong as the clicking rang through the room, lots of clicking. It didn't take long for three of the monsters to appear into view with the flares we had, and I jumped into action. They fell after putting up a fight and screaming. The sound of metal on metal, the horrid breathing, the screaming answering calls, and the constant clicking alerted us all that they were coming. More people went to pry the door open as others grabbed anything they could use to fight with, some waving flares, others wielding splints. Only I had a proper weapon, but it was hard to get to the spinal cord and heart with my dagger. I couldn't fight them and win with daggers, I know I realized, but I still tried. The first one came into view and I killed it just as the next two came. The flares set them on fire and if swallowed they burst into flames. But we realized that for every one we killed two more would appear and join the fight. As soon as we ran out of flares and I was the only one with a weapon, a triumphant cry rang out as light spilled in from the open door, and everyone ran out of the dark room, the monsters retreating from the sudden light. We didn't look back as we ran, no clicking came after us, and we didn't stop until we reached the bottom of the mountain."

Amber stopped in front of Nea and allowed herself to be pulled back into his lap and held securely against his chest. She looked exhausted as if she had just fought for hours and hours with a small blade against huge monsters, risking her life and trying to protect those that couldn't protect themselves.

"It was then I decided to go back and kill the rest of them. I couldn't let those things live and suffer, nor could I risk them getting anywhere near Castela. So, I told them where to go and I went back. As I climbed the mountain, I felt the weight of my dagger disappear and be replaced with something longer and just a bit heavier. When I pulled the blade out, I was holding a rapier. A sharp, thin needle rapier. It flowed through the air like butter, and I was able to use it to stab through solid rock easily. It was a better weapon for the monsters. As I got closer I saw the monsters prowling the outside of the lab, and I counted. I saw thirteen of them on the left, fifteen on the right, five on the roof, four in front of me, and one in the doorway of the lab. The one in the lab was watching me, smiling at me, and then it stood and walked back inside. Then the others saw me and attacked. I killed all of them quickly and efficiently. Then the last one came back outside, grinning widely at the bodies around me and started to walk towards me. It stopped just out of striking range and sat down. It looked at me and smiled, dropped a rag on the ground then turned around and went back into the lab, shutting the door behind it." Amber stopped, looked at everyone around her, and then said one last thing. "I ran away from that place as fast as I possibly could."

Lavi and Lena were silent as Mana, Ellenia, and Nea held and comforted Amber. But Lavi wasn't in shock like Lena was, no he was thinking. That monster sounded like the one that had spoken to Yuu-chan. But the experiments, he felt like he had heard something about a lab lost two years ago because of an accident and no one could go back to reclaim it while he was listening to some talk from guys from central.

"Amber," Lavi said carefully. "I know this is selfish of me, especially considering the hell you went through, but can you take me to the lab? Or where the lab was located?"

"No," Amber said. "I won't go there again, not even if you put my life on the line!"

"Okay, I understand," Lavi said. He had to go to that lab. He had to know who made these creatures. "Could you guide me to the base of the mountain and point me up the right path then?"

Amber and the others stared at Lavi as if he had grown three heads, even Lena who was used to his crazy plots and suicidal behaviors was looking at him funny.

"Why do you want to go so badly? Why do you want to go even though only hell and death await you?"

"I want to help with the problem that these things have caused for you," Lavi said, not lying but also not telling the full truth. "And I can't do that unless I can see the place they were made, and where they originated."

"_You won't find your answers in the lab,_" an ethereal bodiless voice rang out.

Mana's eyes went as wide as dinner plates. "Castela?!"

Lavi's eyes narrowed at the woman in the water pillar, who was now watching him. "What do you mean?"

Castela smiled and replied without moving her mouth. "_Your answers are found above the lab, in the headquarters for the important scientists that couldn't be placed in danger's way. You will need Amber to lead you beyond the lab, to the top of the mountain. But be warned. The land has sensed a mass of them on the mountains and in the nearby forests. Your best chance of survival is to bring strong fighters with you into the mountains. I cannot watch over you from my place here while you're on the mountain. It is why those things happened without being stopped. But remember, AMBER is the only one who can guide you there, and if she says no, then you can do nothing to help us or sate your own curiosity without dying._"

Everyone fell silent, processing what Castela had just said. Well, Lavi and Lena were, Mana, Ellenia, Nea, and Amber were wondering just who these people were if Castela had gone out of her way to talk to the travelers and them as a group instead of having one of them relay her message to the two exorcists.

**~DGRAYMAN~**

Kanda groaned as he sat on the floor, trying to clear his head of what Amber implanted in it before she skipped through the wall. Yes, you heard right. She skipped, FUCKING SKIPPED, through the FUCKING wall right across from the Moyashi's room as she called out 'I want to be the aunt of at least three kids, kay Kanda? Play nice~!'

If the girl hadn't left when she did, Kanda would be cleaning her blood from his beloved Mugen right now, instead of trying to meditate and forget every image that the brat had just planted into his head. Speaking of Mugen, Kanda should probably tend to it before he forgets. It's not often that Kanda forgets to tend to his blade as he cherishes Mugen, but Kanda tries to never let his sword go through things without cleaning it afterwards. So, Kanda got up and walked into the ensuite bathroom and grabbed what he would need to clean Mugen, sat on the floor, and got to work. Though why the Moyashi would have sword cleaning equipment and kits under his bathroom sink was beyond him at that point, he was grateful as he had lost his when they were attacked by the monster before finding this kingdom.

When he was satisfied with the shine on Mugen's blade he put everything back, then looked around the room.

Allen's bathroom was probably as big as Kanda's room at the Order, well if he still had one anyway. The floor was a sparkling dark blue marble, the walls the same dark blue marble, but it got lighter as it went up, almost reflecting what being submerged would look like. It was very peaceful and probably the best place to meditate and clear his mind. The room had a double vanity, dark oak cabinets, and a light creamy off-white granite counter. The shower on the wall was tinted glass, or stained if you will, so he couldn't see detail through it, just blurred shapes, but the door was open so Kanda could see the light blue marble on the floor and wall, the removable showerhead and the shampoo and conditioner the Moyashi used, along with the body soap. On the other side of the room was a tub that could easily fit him, Moyashi, Lavi, and Lena with space to spare. It was a beautiful white quartz. Beside it rested another tub, but this one was deeper, taller, and could fit him comfortably without space for others, but this one looked like it was never used. It was a sparkling black quartz tub. Kanda wanted to ask about the bathroom when his Moyashi woke up but was snapped out of his thoughts when the door opened to show Allen.

"Kanda?" Allen said, rubbing his eyes in the cutest fashion every. He looked about ready to drop back asleep at any second. "What are you doing in the bathroom?"

Suddenly, Kanda couldn't speak. He didn't remember Allen taking off his pants or changing his shirt, but he did somewhere between when they got into the room to now. Kanda couldn't swallow the lump in his throat as he stared at what Allen was wearing. Allen's shirt was too big on him, going down to his mid-thighs and slipping down his shoulders revealing his unmarked pale neck and the start of the black design of his Innocence. Allen didn't have anything under the shirt besides boxers, Kanda noted as Allen stretched and his shirt rode up. Kanda was struggling to not jump the boy and take him right there in the bathroom.

"Kanda?" Allen asked again, tilting his head, baring more of his neck to Kanda, confusion in his eyes. Allen was acting innocent and like he doesn't know what he's doing to Kanda, but on the inside, he was smirking, begging Kanda to break and just take him. It was what he wanted after all.

Kanda cleared his throat, "I had to use the toilet..." He said awkwardly. He looked around but didn't see the toilet. "Where is it?"

Allen smiled, innocent on the outside, evilly on the inside. "It's over here, I'll show you." Allen walked over to a door and after making sure he had Kanda's attention pushed it open to reveal a smaller room with a toilet and a smaller sink. Kanda saw it but gulped. Allen pushed the door open and let his upper half go with the door but not move his lower half, so Kanda had a great view of Allen's ass clad in only tight boxers. But Kanda still had control over himself and refused to let his urges get the better of him, so he walked into the room, nodded to Allen, and closed the door.

With Kanda unable to see, Allen smirked and skipped over to the double vanity, pulling out his toothbrush and toothpaste, and grabbing out an extra toothbrush for Kanda. Allen didn't lean over on purpose this time, so when Kanda opened the door after taking care of his business, he stopped and stared openly at Allen, who was rinsing his mouth out but was bent over the counter, almost asking to be claimed.

Allen looked up and saw Kanda, and smiled. "I have an extra toothbrush if you'd like to use it. I also have some brushes around here somewhere if you want to detangle your hair."

Kanda nodded and quickly moved to use the toothbrush before Allen bent down again. Kanda was slowly losing his tightly leashed self-control. If Moyashi didn't stop what he was doing he was going to get jumped.

Thankfully, Allen got a brush and gave it to Kanda before he sighed and leaned against the counter, yawning quietly. When Kanda was done Allen grabbed his arm and dragged him back into the bedroom.

"I'll show you to your room later, for now," Allen pulled Kanda onto the bed after him and nuzzled into the pillows. "I'm too tired and you're not going to wander aimlessly around the castle until someone helps you, so you're staying here with me tonight. Night, Kanda!"

"Night, Moyashi," Kanda whispered, laying on his back, hands behind his head, slowly dozing off. He had to constantly remind himself that this wasn't anything new, that they had shared beds before on missions for the Black Order, that them sharing a bed now meant absolutely nothing and that he was getting optimistic for nothing. He just wished Allen wouldn't be so far away in this double queen bed.

Kanda sighed and let himself drift off, and for the first time in a long time, he felt safe enough to truly let his guard down, so he didn't move or react as Allen sat up and slid closer to him, cuddling into his chest, one arm wrapped around his waist, the other under his body. Allen smiled in content as Kanda's arms snaked down and wrapped around his waist, pulling Allen closer and more firmly against his chest.

Neither one wanted to admit that they were awake to the other, even less that this is exactly what they wanted, as they fell asleep in each other's embrace, each one hoping that this night would last forever so they could stay like this forever with nothing to rip them apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it for this chapter!
> 
> Wow, Amber has a dark past. And we still don't know why Kanda was called Dragon boy. And what is the deal with that one creature? And why, for the first time since Castela took over the position of castle protector, is she talking to the group in the pavilion without having one of the royals pass on her message?
> 
> Love you all~


	4. Knock Dammit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the smutty sex scene between Kanda and Allen! With a hilarious interruption in place to make something plotwise happen. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> This is completely skippable and not needed to read. If you don't like Smut between two males or the slang words used (they are teenagers, they won't be using Penis when thinking or describing what's going on between them.) then you can just skip to the endnotes to see what happened plot-wise that was hidden in the smut.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing but the laptop this was written on, the plot that's writing itself, and the characters I made up.

_Family Matters_

_Chapter 5_

_Knock Dammit_

**~DGRAYMAN~**

Kanda woke up slowly, groaning at the weight on his hips. _Wait, what? _Kanda snapped his eyes open and registered silver orbs staring down at him.

"Kanda?" The silver orbs owner asked. "What's this thing poking me?"

Kanda groaned, half shutting his eyes, as Allen, HIS Moyashi, ground his own hips against him, rubbing his morning erection. "D-don't do that, Moyashi."

Allen's eyes had grown a few shades darker as Kanda groaned. Allen wanted to hear it again, the deep sexy rumble from Kanda's chest, so Allen continued to grind against Kanda, closing his eyes and letting out little moans as Kanda got harder and harder under him.

Kanda growled and flipped him and Allen over. He had to hold his Moyashi in place so he could catch his breath and understand what was happening. Though he couldn't think as his Moyashi whimpered and moaned, trying to rub against him again if the fight to move his hips was anything to go on.

"Do you know what your doing, Moyashi?" Kanda growled, his voice darker and harsher with lust.

"T-taking initiative to make you t-take me!" Allen managed to say, whimpering as Kanda's grip got harder. "God Kanda~! I changed into the longest shirt I had and flirted with you in the bathroom last night! And the only thing I got was you sleeping beside me!"

Kanda leaned down to Allen's ear, one hand slipping over Allen's visible bulge. "You want me to fuck you into this bed?" He growled out, his voice harsher with evident lust. "You wanted me to take you last night?"

"Yes! Please~ Kanda! Take me!"

Kanda pressed his palm down onto Allen's arousal, delighting in the beautiful sounds Allen was releasing. Kanda was struggling to control himself, he wanted his Moyashi as badly as Allen wanted him, but he didn't want to hurt him.

"Kanda~!" Allen whined, arching into Kanda's hand. "Please~ T-touch me~"

Kanda groaned, pressing himself against Allen, nipping, kissing, and licking his neck. Some part of him wanted to bite his Moyashi, to prove that the Moyashi was HIS and ONLY HIS! But Kanda fought against that part of him, like he's always done, and moved to remove Allen's nightshirt to bring more of that pale delicious flesh into his view. He was going to worship Allen's body and make Allen beg and plead more and more.

When Kanda got the shirt off Allen, he was glad he slept in just his boxers, the sight of his Moyashi flushed and willing to be claimed was a major turn on and any type of pants would just be uncomfortable. Kanda dipped down and licked and sucked a trail from Allen's ear to his right nipple, taking his time to mouth, suck, lick, and nip every part of Allen's chest except his nipple. Allen groaned and yanked Kanda's head, bringing Kanda's tongue onto his pink nub. Kanda latched onto it, biting and sucking as he looked up at Allen, enjoying how Allen was blushing a light pink and gasping, squirming under Kanda in pleasure.

"Mmm~ Kanda~ Yes~" Allen managed between gasps and moans. He was enjoying this, but he wanted Kanda to touch in a lower place. "Please, Kanda~ I-i need m-more!"

Kanda wasted no time yanking Allen's boxers off and starting to pump and tease Allen's shaft, smirking as Allen moaned louder and bucked into his hand. He was going to enjoy watching Allen in unimaginable pleasure beneath him. Then he paused his movements, holding Allen still. He cocked his head, listening for that sound again, but all he could hear was Allen whimpering and moaning beneath him. Kanda narrowed his eyes at the door, then captured Allen's mouth, exploring Allen's hot cavern, encouraging Allen to use his tongue with him, slowly pumping Allen again, eyes still on the door, focusing on the door and Allen at the same time.

"Shh~ If were quiet they won't hear us and we can get a picture~" came a soft voice from behind the door. '_Baka Usagi,_' Kanda thought, pulling away from Allen's mouth and reaching for Mugen, silently unsheathing it, then with a sharp grip on Allen's swollen shaft, he threw Mugen at the door, watching in satisfaction as Allen came on his hand and a sharp yelp rang out as Mugen almost skewered Lavi.

"Leave," Kanda growled out. "Or your head will roll." He smirked in victory as he heard hurried footsteps rush from the door. He turned his head to look down at Allen, smirk slipping away and turning into a soft smile as he observed his Moyashi panting and basking in the afterglow of his orgasm. "Did you enjoy that Moyashi~?"

Allen could only give a small smile in response as he reached out to Kanda weakly. Kanda came closer to Allen and laughed slightly as Allen held him close and nuzzled into his neck, letting out a content sigh. Allen then squeaked as he felt Kanda's manhood brush against his hole, shivering at the promise of pleasure if let in.

Kanda smirked at Allen's reaction, sitting up and bringing Allen up with him. He moved them so Kanda's back was to the pillows and Allen was between his legs. He held Allen's head up with one hand, the other tangling in Allen's hair. "Put that big mouth of yours to work~"

Allen turned bright red, but slid down Kanda's body anyway and rested, his head above Kanda's swollen pulsing cock. Looking up at Kanda, Allen licked his cock slowly before sucking on the head, shivering at the taste of precum. Kanda had to restrain from fucking Allen's mouth right then and there, as he watched Allen take in more and more of him until his Moyashi's lips were wrapped around the base, his tongue laving and worshiping the flesh it could reach, sucking and vibrating his throat to please Kanda. Kanda couldn't think, his Moyashi was sucking him off with extreme skill, all while looking for all the world like he was sucking on a lollipop with an innocent expression on his face.

"Fuck," Kanda groaned, trying to pull Allen's head off his cock. "S-stop Moyashi. I'm about to c-cum."

In response, Allen pulled off slowly, saliva connecting his mouth with Kanda's cock. "Cum in my mouth. I want to taste you." Then lowered himself back on Kanda and hummed around his cock, licking Kanda's slit.

Kanda couldn't take it anymore, so he grabbed Allen's hair and forced him all the way down, and when Allen gagged at the rough treatment, he released into Allen's mouth and down his throat, collapsing back onto the pillows in bliss. He opened his eyes slowly as he felt Allen climb into his lap and lean against him. Allen looked shy, but proud of himself as he leaned in to give Kanda a deep passionate kiss, which Kanda gladly and easily reciprocated.

Kanda wrapped his arms around his Moyashi, nuzzling into Allen's neck, enjoying the feel of Allen naked in his arms. But he couldn't feel satisfied no matter how great the blowjob was, and soon he felt himself harden against Allen's ass once again. Allen moaned softly, pushing against the hard cock teasing him.

"God Kanda~" Allen moaned, a smirk on his face. "Looks like we both need something else to be fully sated~"

"Lube?" was all Kanda asked. Allen detached from Kanda, crawling to the other side of the bed to reach into the nightstand, rummaging around in it until he grabbed something and then crawled back to Kanda. "Were moving that over here or were keeping that on the headboard."

Allen could only nod in agreement, handing Kanda what he grabbed. Kanda could only look at the small metal ring in confusion, he looked up at Allen for an explanation. "It's a cock ring," Allen said, then blushed bright red. "I-i like being teased and being controlled." He muttered as an explanation.

Kanda stared at Allen, popped the lube and started to coat three fingers. "I'm not the first one you've had?"

Allen gasped as Kanda slipped one of his fingers into his hole, quivering at the feeling. "Y-your the first one to take me~ I-i just p-played with myself, imagine my fingers as yours. T-Tim h-had a sick idea one day and stalked up till he found you hard, then went and got a dildo the same size as you, and a vibrator, so I could feel what you would feel like stretching me-ahh~" Allen collapsed against Kanda as he slipped in his second finger and brushed his prostate instantly. "D-Do that again~"

Kanda just chuckled, slipped in a third finger and made sure to coat Allen's walls and hit his prostate again and again, watching in amusement as Allen started to fuck himself with Kanda's fingers. Kanda pulled his fingers out, smirking as Allen whimpered in loss. "I'm not touching you anymore." Allen whimpers. "Coat my cock in lube and ride me." Allen shivered at Kanda's command, took the lube and quickly covered Kanda's giant cock from base to tip in the lube.

Kanda watched, hands behind his head, fingering the cock ring in one hand, as Allen slowly sunk onto his cock, pleasure filling him from seeing Allen in pleasure sinking inch after hard inch of his cock into his ass. Kanda groaned as Allen's walls clenched and relaxed around him. When Allen was seated on Kanda's cock, he had to close his eyes and let himself adjust to Kanda's cock. Yeah he would fuck himself with the dildo every now and again, but he left it behind at the Order, so he had nothing in him but fingers for three months, so he had to readjust before moving.

Allen jumped slightly as something cold and hard slid down his own cock. He opened his eyes to see the cock ring at the base of his cock, tightened and taunting him. Looking up at Kanda, Allen got harder when he saw how Kanda was watching the cock ring, and staring at the place where they connected. Allen rolled his hips slightly, and moaned in pleasure, before he started to bounce on Kanda, at first only pulling off slightly, until he was pulling out so only the head was in and then slamming his hips back down, moaning and screaming as he kept striking his prostate with Kanda's cock.

Allen was panting and holding onto Kanda for support as he fell into the waves of pleasure until Kanda stilled him.

"K-kanda~" Allen whimpered, trying to move and reach that pleasure again.

Then he paled as he heard the sound of footsteps in the living quarters of his rooms, turning his head to look at the door as the handle turned and the door swung open.

"Good morning, Allen!" Came the cheerful voice of Mana. "I hope your aw-" Mana stared at the position both Kanda and Allen were in, both naked, clinging to each other, sweating, and the smell of sex in the air. Mana stood still in shock.

Then a scream rang through the castle, and those between Allen's quarters and the infirmary saw Mana limping, bleeding and bruised, muttering 'my baby boy has a lover' in the halls.

Allen collapsed back onto the bed after slamming and locking the door into his quarters and the door to the bedroom, growling in frustration.

"I finally get you alone and inside me," Allen started, staring up at Kanda, who had moved to sit beside him. "And everyone is out to ruin it! Even the fucking mood is ruined!"

Kanda just pulled Allen into his lap and pushed himself against Allen, pleased in the gasp that rang from Allen's swollen lips. "I can bring it back, and this time~" Kanda reached between them to rub Allen's cock. "I'm going to fuck you into this bed so hard you won't walk for a week~."

Allen let out a breathy chuckle and kissed Kanda, falling backwards and taking Kanda with him. "If I can walk before a week is up, I'm going to be mad."

Kanda growled at the challenge in Allen's voice. "Then I guess I'm gonna have to take you till you pass out~"

Allen shivered under Kanda's hands and mouth as Kanda slid back into him and started to worship every inch of skin he could reach. Allen was moaning and pushing back down on Kanda instantly, screaming in pleasure as Kanda began to move. He shivered and screamed, grabbed Kanda's head and pulled it up, slamming their mouths together, shivering at the deep ruby red eyes watching him.

'_Wait, red?_' Allen thought, shoving Kanda off him, yelping as Kanda fell off the bed and away from him.

"Moyashi," Kanda growled, eyes shining a deep ruby red, slowly standing up, gaze locked on Allen.

Allen didn't want to believe this man wasn't his Kanda, but Kanda had deep cobalt blue eyes, not deep ruby red eyes. His eyes shot around the room, looking for any way out and away from this Kanda. A growl and a creak were all it took for Allen to look back at Kanda, then dash towards the bathroom, not risking going by Kanda to get out into the living quarters. Allen slammed the door closed behind him, and yelped as Kanda slammed into the door.

"Open the door, Moyashi," Kanda growled. "Don't run from me, it's only going to get worse if you don't open the door."

Allen snapped the locks on the door into place and ran to the closet, yanked on a shirt and boxers, then heard the smash. Slowly, ever so slowly, Allen turned his head around to see Kanda had made a hole in the door and was unlocking it. Allen ran to the opposite side of the room, whimpering as he realized that even though he was small and skinny, he wouldn't get out his window.

"Moyashi," Kanda was in the room now, standing before the door, arms crossed over his chest, eyes still ruby red. "Why are you running? You wanted this."

"Y-you," Allen stuttered, shaking. "Y-your not Kanda."

A blank stare. "What?"

"Kanda has cobalt blue eyes," Allen responded. Kanda furrowed his brow, confusion clear on his normally expressionless face. "You have ruby red."

Kanda scoffed. "You need your eyes checked Moyashi, my eyes are blue, not red."

Allen shook his head and pointed towards the mirror, pressing himself against the wall. Kanda sighed and walked over to the mirror and looked at his eyes.

...

...

"What the hell?!" Kanda was staring at his eyes in horror. Allen was right, they had turned red. "What the fuck happened to my eyes?!"

Allen slowly approached Kanda, standing beside him, ready to run if Kanda went after him. Kanda looked at Allen, and lifted his arm, almost inviting Allen into his embrace. "It's okay, Moyashi. I'm not going to hurt you, relax."

Allen nodded and slid into Kanda's side to curl against his chest. He sighed and rested his head above Kanda's heart.

"You freaked out when you saw the color," Kanda muttered. "So they changed like this during our lovemaking. What makes someone's eyes change color?"

"Maybe Lavi would know," Allen said, letting his eyes fall, only to gasp.

Kanda looked down also, he was still rock hard. "Oh." He narrowed his eyes at the mirror, then pulled Allen into a bruising kiss. "Fucking eyes made you run. I'm still going to take your ass, even if we do it right here."

Allen, for lack of a better word, melted into Kanda and yelped in sudden pain. Kanda stopped moving. "Forgot the cock ring. Sorry." Kanda rolled his eyes and removed the metal ring from Allen.

"Bed or counter, and make it quick."

Allen bit his lip and looked into Kanda's eyes. "C-can we cover your eyes? O-or blindfold me? I-I can't stand to see your eyes red."

Kanda grinned, then yanked Allen back to the bed, throwing him into the center of the bed. "You have a blindfold in the drawer?" A nod. Kanda smirked as he opened the drawer. "Moyashi? Do you use all this?"

"D-don't look at everything, j-just grab the blindfold."

Kanda chuckled, he was going to use all these eventually, but just grabbed the blindfold and wrapped it around Allen's eyes tightly. "Can you see?"

"No."

"Good."

Kanda hovered over Allen, then slowly slid back into Allen, groaning in approval as Allen tightened around him. Kanda started to move slowly, teasingly as he searched for that special spot.

"Could you move any slower?! It's like I'm letting a snail fuck me in the ass!"

Something in Kanda snapped at that.

'_IF HE CAN STILL SPEAK TO US LIKE THAT, THEN YOU NEED TO MAKE HIM INCOHERENT._' A voice rumbled. Kanda looked down at Allen and instantly knew that voice was inside him, and it was right. Allen should be screaming and whimpering under him.

"Kanda? You okay?" Allen asked, snapping Kanda out of his head. He had stilled his movements for too long. "Kanda what's wro-AHHHH!"

Kanda was pounding into Allen, His Moyashi, making him scream in pleasure, no one else but him.

'_YES! MAKE HIM OURS! FINALLY, WE WILL CLAIM OUR MATE!_'

Kanda growled, going harder into Allen, not slowing down even as Allen screamed his first orgasm.

'_THAT IS OUR WORK BOY! OUR MATE IS IN PLEASURE BECAUSE OF OUR ACTIONS! WE ARE THE ONE RINGING SCREAMS AND PLEASURE FROM HIM!_'

Allen couldn't think. He couldn't feel anything but the intoxicating feel of Kanda going in and out, nipping his throat, sucking his neck, rubbing his chest, jerking him off. It was too much for Allen to stay coherent, and he felt himself go over the edge again, screaming Kanda's name.

Then Kanda stilled, held Allen in place and growled.

"Say my name, Aren~" Kanda purred, rocking slightly into Allen.

"K-kanda~" Allen gasped, trying to get Kanda to get back into fucking him.

"_WRONG AREN~_" Kanda growled out, his voice accompanied by a deeper rumbling voice.

"Yuu~" Allen moaned.

"_YOUR MINE AREN, MINE AND ONLY MINE, GOT IT?_" Kanda growled.

"Yours Yuu~ All yours~"

Kanda growled and picked up his bruising pace again, loving how Allen was now screaming his name in absolute pleasure. Kanda was pleased and so was the voice inside him.

'_MARK HIM AS OURS AND ONLY OURS!_'

Allen was panting and gasping, trusting down into all of Kanda's thrusts. "C-close~ Y-yuu~" Allen moaned in pleasure.

"With me Aren~" Kanda groaned out, thrusts getting erotic and uneven.

When Kanda came, he bit hard onto Allen's neck, breaking the skin and leaving a deep wound, one that Allen didn't feel as he was coming himself and enjoying how Kanda filled him completely as his walls milked Kanda's cock.

"_MINE,_" Kanda growled against the bite mark. Allen could only nod and curl into Kanda's chest as Kanda collapsed onto the bed beside him.

In a few minutes, fatigue took over and both occupants of the bed were fast asleep, not one noticing Kanda's eyes turning back to his captivating cobalt blue color.

**~DGRAYMAN~**

"So tell me again why you're bedridden until your side heals?" A woman asked, standing over the infirmary bed.

"Sweety I told you already," The man in the bed answered.

The woman plopped down onto the chair beside the bed. "Mana in what world do you live in where its okay to enter the room of our son without knocking?"

Mana groaned. "I've never had problems before, Ellenia. Besides how was I suppose to kn-AHHH!"

Ellenia stood over Mana, the sweetest smile on her face with the blackest aura that would make Kanda shit his pants. She was currently digging her hand into Mana's wounded side.

"Mana, darling," She cooed lovingly. "Next time, KNOCK DAMNNIT!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I kinda feel bad about leaving us to wonder what Allen did to Mana when he entered, but I feel worse writing where Allen got his dark side from.
> 
> Hope this chapter of smut was a good way to make the last chapter less nightmare-inducing. Yeah, that's not gonna happen. Also, because I'm never going to tell you in the story who was with Lavi outside the door, I'll tell you now. Amber wanted to make sure Allen and Kanda were fucking, and Lavi wanted to join her to get some pics. Kanda heard them shut the door to the quarters not as softly as they would have wanted, hence why he reacted like he did, and yes, Mugen is still in the door. It's being used as 'Rabbit Deterrent' at the moment.
> 
> Well, I love my characters so much. Catela could of stopped Kanda once Allen became scared, but didn't. Ellenia is a loving and understanding woman, but she has a rare trait called 'COMMON SENSE'. I mean seriously! Mana and Nea, hell all the fucking NOAH don't care what they are interrupting, so its really only logical that this is something Mana would do, ignore all the moans and screams, the panting and creaking, and then open the fucking door and just stand there staring like he found a new species!
> 
> So~ I left a new mystery for you all to figure out. The voice in Kanda's head.
> 
> The next chapter will feature the events of dinner that same day, cause let's face it, sex like that you're going to be out for hours. So, here is what you can expect in the next chapter.
> 
> -A recap of what the guys talked about in the last chapter
> 
> -The group making a decision about it
> 
> -And more explanation of why Amber has no teacher (If I didn't mention that in a past chapter, it'll be explained in the next one so don't worry.)
> 
> -Oh, and the voice will reappear more often now.
> 
> -And more~
> 
> Later guys~
> 
> LOVE YOU~


	5. Advisors and Plans

_Family Matters_

_Chapter 6_

_Advisors and Plans_

**~DGRAYMAN~**

Amber noted with joy as Kanda and Allen walked into the dining room and took their seats next to each other, that Allen, her beloved Nii-san, was limping and clinging onto Kanda's arm as a drunk would. Only she knew what they were doing, and Kanda must be really good in bed if Allen still looks like he's coming down from La la land.

Stifling her giggles, she looked over at Lavi, who was trying very hard not to stare and bring Kanda's attention to him. Lena looked ready to jump Allen and nurse him better, and her parents... Well, her mom was approving of Kanda, her dad was still looking miserable and in pain. Her uncle wasn't in the room yet so she wouldn't get to see what he thought of Kanda till he came in.

She was pleased. A nice dinner with family and friends with no business to talk about, no fools to please, and no old men sizing her up for their sons.

Allen must have thought the same because not a minute later, Uncle Nea is through the doors with a huff, as the ten advisors follow behind him, all chatting about how this meeting needs to happen and that he will not get away from them any longer, that the King and Prince are unavailable mean nothing and this meeting must happen so it is up to him to deal with everything for them.

"Mana deal with these idiots!" Nea says as he plops down in his chair, glaring at Mana and the advisors at the same time.

"Oh, King Mana," the fattest one said. Advisor Hunnible, the leader of the fawn race of the kingdom. He's a pig. "We need to speak to you about the engagement of Prince Allen."

"Yes, it's very important," the skinniest said. Advisor Orbion, the leader of the small constellation race. Not to be mistaken for the stars, these guys are just the rip off versions.

"Because Prince Allen is 16 and will take over the throne when married," the oldest one started. Advisor Age, leader of the Treemen. I kid you not. He is a living, moving, tree-shaped like a human.

Following the three most influential Advisors were Advisor Fair, the Leader of the Fairies, Advisor Shel, the leader of the demons of legends, Advisor Mel, leader of the Water Spirts, Advisor Skel, leader of the Lizardmen, Advisor Dog, Leader of the werewolves, Advisor Veld, leader of the vampires, and Advisor Sankada, the only female advisor and the last of her kind, a Pure Blood Dragon. She leads the half-blood dragons, though few they are, but powerful.

"Advisors," Mana's voice filled the room, all talking stopping. "This can wait until tomorrow. For now, I want to rest and enjoy a meal with my family."

Advisor Shel bristled. "You don't understand, King Mana. Prince Allen needs to take a bride before the end of the year, or none will want to marry the Prince!"

"You know the Kingdom and its rules, King Mana," Advisor Dog started. "If Prince Allen doesn't take a bride and produce an heir before the year is up, he will become infertile and the Walker family will lose all rights as the Rulers of this kingdom."

Advisor Fair, bless his kind soul, let out a silent-ish scream, catching everyone's attention. "You are so closed-minded! What if Prince Allen is drawn to MEN?! Then what? Still, force a queen on him? Or will you insist that only the strongest of all ten races gets to marry the Prince?"

Advisor Sankada stood beside Advisor Fair. "And what if young Prince Allen already has someone he wants to marry? Already has his fiance and is planning a wedding with said fiance? Would you stop him and force him into your ideas?"

Advisor Veld glared at them both. "Clearly you haven't paid any attention. Prince Allen must marry one born and raised in this kingdom." He turned to Mana. "A daughter of the strongest warrior of all ten races will be presented before Prince Allen and yourself King Mana, tomorrow morning, so Prince Allen can choose the one he wants to become his bride. Nothing else is allowed for this kingdom to flourish."

With that said, and not waiting for anything else, Advisor Veld and the others left, leaving only Fair and Sankada behind with the silent room.

"Mana," Nea began. "I'm sorry. I didn't think before I brought them here."

"It is not your fault Nea," Mana replied, before slamming his head into the table. "Fucking assholes. I want them all to leave and not bother my baby boy with such nonsense traditions."

Sankada and Fair smiled and plopped down at the table with them. Fair in the chair beside Allen, Sankada beside Amber.

"So, Allen," Fair began, slinging his arm over Allen's shoulder and holding him in a sideways hug. "Is this your lover?"

Allen glared at Fair, slipped from under his arm and curled against Kanda's side. "Yes. Kanda is my lover. And I hope that I can marry him one day."

Silence.

Amber had a passing thought that she could probably cut the tension in the room with her sword.

"YOU WANT TO DO WHAT?!"

"HE'S YOUR WHAT?!"

"I KNEW IT!"

Amber then had the thought, 'Adults are weird. Especially these three.'

~DGRAYMAN~

Once dinner was done, everyone moved into the lounge and started relaxing comfortably, though Kanda still looked constipated and pissed, before Allen shot up out of the love seat he was on with Kanda.

"I forgot Johnny and Bookman!"

Cue the sweatdrop.

"Don't worry, Nii-san," Amber replied, pushing Allen back onto the love seat and curling between both Allen and Kanda. "I went with Lena and picked them up earlier. They are resting in the guest rooms right now."

Cue Allen's visible relief.

"So when can we be expecting little Kanda's?"

Cue Fair dodging a pillow from Allen.

"So let's talk about that trip up the mountains," Mana started, catching everyone's attention.

"Yeah, "Lavi agreed, eager to turn conversation elsewhere. "So, I was thinking maybe me, Lena, and Kanda could go to the base of the mountains with Amber and she could point us in the right direction and we would be back in no time."

"But Castela said it would be dangerous and Amber would have to guide us the entire way, Lavi."

Allen sighed and held Amber tight while curling against Kanda's side.

"Why do you want to go up the mountain so bad, Lavi?" Allen asked, eyes closed.

"So I can help get rid of the monsters and make sure no one can ever recreate the monsters," Lavi stated.

"Castela, what do you think about this?" Allen said.

'_Your friend speaks half-truths. He wants to see if the Black Order had anything to do with the monsters. And if they did that gives him another reason to seek revenge on the corrupt organization that has taken away two of his closest friends childhoods, an organization he himself was already secretly planning on destroying from the inside once he saw how your friends were treated as weapons and nothing more.'_

"Castela gives the green light. Amber only travels to the mountain if I join you though."

Everyone was silent, Mana and Ellenia watching their children with worry, Nea trying to think this through, and the others processing this information.

"So you finally made up your mind about this, Allen?" Fair finally said. A nod. "Then I guess its only right as not only Advisor but as a loyal bodyguard and lieutenant of your army, that I follow and help you out. What do you say Sankada? Wanna go stretch your muscles with me?"

"Well, when you put it that way," Sankada began, only to let a giant shuriken form in her hands. "When do we start playing?"

Mana let out a few joyful chuckles. "You leave in the morning. Get plenty of rest and Allen," Cue Allen looking over at Mana. "I'll deal with the other Advisors. You go make sure no one dies and everything is safe for our kingdom."

Nods and agreements all around and then everyone leaving to go back to their rooms, well except Kanda, he's rooming with Allen instead of the room he's meant to be in.


	6. Morning Before Disaster

_Family Matters_

_Chapter 7_

_Morning Before Disaster_

~DGRAYMAN~

Kanda watched as Lavi and Lenalee walked ahead of him towards the room that was supposedly capable of moving up and down without Castela's power, though why they didn't have stairs was beyond him, he would have preferred taking stairs. Allen had stayed behind after breakfast to talk to Mana about something, saying he would catch up when he was done. Amber and the two Advisors, Fair and Sankada, were to be waiting for them at the room, ready to start the descent down when they arrived. Catching Lavi looking back at him, something sparkling in his eye, brought about a strange feeling in Kanda, but he couldn't place it.

'**He is curious and scared**,' Came a deep rumble. Kanda narrowed his eyes and watched Lavi, and sure enough, he noticed the little twitch in his right hand, fingers opening and closing ready to pull out his weapon and attack.

'_Why__?_' Kanda asked. He didn't speak out loud, no he knew the thing speaking with him could hear his thoughts just fine.

'**_Are you not scared, boy?_**' The voice growled.

'_No,_' Kanda shook his head as the others came to a door. '_Why should I be? Were just investigating an abandoned lab on a monster-infested mountain. I'm just here to kill the damn monsters._'

'**_That's what I thought a long time ago,_**' the voice rumbled. Kanda raised an eyebrow at Lavi and Lena as they hesitated at the door.

"Kanda," Lena began, her hands messing with the bottom of her skirt. "Do you think this is a good idea? I mean Amber is terrified to go beyond the pavilion, and now we're making her go back to the place she was tormented at, even if they didn't hurt her like the Black Order did us."

'**_The young girl has a point,_**'The voice rumbled. '**_The mountains have never been safe, but now I can feel the corruption from here. Its taint will only get worse, but we shouldn't subject the young princess to this hell.'_**

"The Baka Usagi over there has said its just an investigation of the area," Kanda said, keeping his mind focused. "You two wanted to do this. Don't back down now."

Lena and Lavi sighed and opened the door, going into the room and greeting Fair and Sankada, all while Amber attached herself to his leg as soon as he entered the room.

'_The Moyashi and Amber are clinging to me a lot since we got here,_' Kanda observed, absently putting his hand on Amber's head and pulling her closer.

'**_As she should,_**' the voice responded, amused and fond at the same time. '**_Her mother is part of what we are, boy. The young princess seeks comfort unknowingly, while our mate feels the pulls of attraction and now our bonding mark keeping him with us._**'

'_What do you mean a part of what we are?_' Kanda asked again, only to receive silence. He looked at the others, noted that Lena, Lavi, and Fair were talking about something that was making them laugh, but couldn't stop himself from seeing Sankada's eyes watching him, except she wasn't looking at him, she was looking at something behind him, her face losing all color.

'_What does she see?_' Was all he wondered as he closed his eyes and started to ignore everything around him, except for Amber, who decided he was a comfortable pillow and was now asleep against his leg.

~DGRAYMAN~

Sankada couldn't stop thinking about what Fair had told her last night after dinner. Allen was marked, but Fair couldn't tell what the mark meant, or who had given it to him. Sankada, was the oldest of all the advisors, though no one needed to know how old she truly was, hence she let the others think she is one of the younger advisors, knew all marks and could tell when she saw it, but dinner and relaxing kept the mark hidden from her as it was on the other side of Allen's neck. She needed to make sure Allen was safe, even if he could handle himself and would give her grief about this. Fair couldn't really describe it enough for her to identify without seeing it herself; he couldn't identify some of the shapes as well as a few runes. But the fact remained, she only knew of one person who placed marks on the left side of his mate's neck.

She had to fight to control herself as she remembered the man. He had gone crazy after he lost his mate and unborn child and he had slaughtered everyone in the nesting grounds without discretion. When the others came for his head he killed them all until it was just him and her. She never wondered during their fight why he refused to follow her and stayed before his cave. No, that wonder came after she had subdued him and put him on the brink of death. After taking his body and disposing of it outside their homelands, then she allowed herself to go into the cave and find his mate ripped apart and dead, their eggs shattered and the embryo scattered across the ground dead.

It had haunted her till the day when the dead came back when the veil between the living and dead was weakest at the nesting ground and found his mate sitting in her cave mourning for the children that she lost and a mate that would never return. Sankada had asked what happened to drive her mate insane enough to kill everyone, but she just shook her head and smiled softly, then nuzzled the broken eggs gently.

'_Your youngest knight became obsessed with me when he was helping me when K* couldn't because he was hunting, the obsession grew to the point he wanted me for himself. I was too weak to stop him, he crushed and kill the newborn eggs, and even though I wailed and begged him to stop, for someone to help, no one came. K* came back to find the young knight forcing himself on my body, ripping my weakened body apart and killing me slowly. K* killed him and tried to get help, but everyone attacked him when he threw the young knight out of the cave. No one gave him a chance._'

Sankada never recovered from that, and never helped the dragons return to the world, only helped keep the young who survived to integrate with the other races and kept the bloodlines from staying pure, all except her. She was never going to let another pureblood dragon live, they got possessive and feral really fast, half-bloods didn't. She still didn't know why, but possessiveness and feral rates in the half-bloods were almost non-existent. And if Fair couldn't recognize the mark, then it was most likely something bad was happening.

When the three travelers moved into the room, Sankada pushed all her thoughts away and greeted them all in kind, but stopped dead, and also unnoticed by the others, as she looked at Kanda, she paled and terror filled her. For just a brief moment, standing behind Kanda was a dragon she knew well, but whose name was forbidden to be spoken, a dragon with calculatingly calm deep ruby red eyes.

Sankada had never been more scared or determined at that moment, in her entire life except for the last time she had seen **_Him_**. Then she knew, Kanda had to go. **_He_** was possessing Kanda, and that could only spell disaster and bloodshed. She could only hope that Allen would forgive her for killing the man he loved.

~DGRAYMAN~

Allen was angry. The advisors had come during breakfast with the women he was to pick from in tow, and as much as he loved his kingdom in the few months he had been back, he couldn't help but feel like this was going too far. He was not going to become infertile because he didn't claim a mate to take the throne with him, nor was he going to marry someone he didn't love or know just to please a bunch of fat pigs. The only ones he could even stand at this point were Fair and Sankada. And that was only because they both had dragged Kanda into the room and threw them both together and then declared rather loudly "After we get back from our trip I want to see little babies running around okay guys?" And then dragged them both back out of the room and into another room, where Mana soon joined after leaving Elenia and Neah to deal with the fat pigs.

Allen was just leaving a private meeting with Mana, one that promised swift death if anyone ever found out about the topic, and was on his way to meet the others going up into the mountains in the elevator study. He didn't want to be reminded that he was a Prince, nor part-Noah. He didn't want to have to worry about anything other than keeping himself safe and alive, and maybe how to get laid again without anyone finding out. Though seeing how Kanda could multitask so well last time, and look even hotter while doing so, made him almost want to make a sign that read "Getting Fucked! Stay Out!" if only to see what would happen.

But that would have to wait till after the trip up the mountain and the ensured chaos and destruction that awaited them.

"Your not very fun, Kanda," Came a sudden voice next to Allen, which caused him to yank his head up and stare in shock at the others before him. He had managed to walk half the castle lost in thought and find the correct room without even realizing what he was doing, and now he was looking at Lavi's pouting face, Lena's amused grin, Fair's puppy eyes, and Sankada's suspicious gaze.

The arm, that Allen just realized was there, tightened around his waist as the man holding him pulled him closer. "He was lost in thought when he walked in, I'm not letting you take advantage of that."

"I'm not lost in thought anymore," Allen snapped, voice filled with anger, surprising himself and everyone else. "Now let go."

"No." And the arms tightened as Allen was spun around and pulled closer, leaving Allen resting his left cheek against Kanda's shoulder.

Allen instantly started trying to get out of Kanda's grip, calling him every name he could think of, cursing out everything to do with him, and basically letting all his anger out as he struggled and yelled. "Damnnit BaKanda! Let go!"

It took Allen only seconds to recognize that Kanda had shifted so he was being carried slug over Kanda's shoulder, but he continued to struggle even if he had stopped talking to Kanda all together. When he finally stopped fighting, Kanda shifted him again and held him in his arms like one would a bride or princess, he just huffed and rested his head back on Kanda's shoulder.

Even when it was all about fighting and trying to one-up the other to hide attraction, Kanda was always doing this. Allen would come around near him mad, and Kanda would do something or a string of things to wear him out so Allen could think properly and actually relax and let go of the anger slowly consuming him. This just so happened to be the least destructive and most productive way to do so, as they were already halfway through the forest between the pavilion and the mountains.

Allen didn't think he could fall even more in love with the man holding him. Even if he was an asshole.

~DGRAYMAN~

It took the rest of the morning to get to the mountain, everyone silently following Amber with Fair and Sankada right behind her. Allen had long since lost his anger and was just laying limply in Kanda's arms. He had asked Kanda to put him down now that he was calmer, but Kanda just held tighter and ignored him. So, Allen spent the entire trip cuddling closer to Kanda and just enjoyed being in his arms. The trip to the mountains was safe enough, and he didn't have to be on guard until they hit the base of the mountains, so he just gave up on trying to get free.

Allen looked up at friends, giving reassuring smiles to Lenalee and Lavi when they looked back, hiding his face when Fair would look back at him and wink while giving him a thumbs-up, and meeting Sakanda's suspicious looks with his own hard glares, if she had a problem she would talk to him about it or she would start hiding it better.

When they reached the mountain, Allen smiled lovingly up at Kanda as he looked down, before doing a quick acrobatic trick to end up back to back to Kanda and out of his arms before he could react. The small 'tch' that followed his move brought another smile to his face before he hardened his features and made his way to Amber's side.

The mountains were bigger then he thought they would be, and he quickly realized it would take a few days to make it high enough to even find the labs. Silently he began cursing Castelia and her control over the forest and the base of the mountain. Amber had gone to explore the mountains and had her life ruined in just under a day, now they would have to travel a least two days to get to the first lab, and them more to get to the second lab, all because Castelia had lowered the forest every day since Amber came back from that hell. And that's if Castelia's estimation was to be trusted, because honestly the forest could have been lowered much more then she realized and the mountains have gotten much harder to navigate at the base since the forest started to pull away from the mountain. Three long years of lowering the forest and making the mountains harder to traverse, just to make sure it was harder for those things to get down and for anyone to get up.

This just wasn't his week, was it? The only good thing to come from this week was Kanda and the other's showing up, and then mind-blowingly amazing sex.

"What do you think Nii-san?" Amber asked, grabbing his hand to steady herself in the now, instead of the past.

"This is a bad idea," Allen said evenly, eyes never leaving the mountain range before him. "Fair! Sankada! Take point. Were going up."

Silently, Fair and Sankada moved to the front, and began the climb up, helping each other when they slipped. It made Allen uneasy making them go first, but they had too. Amber couldn't reach the first ledge of the mountain cliff before them unless he lifted her while on someone's shoulders. But I guess that's what two stong warriors who listen to you can help with. Of course, having Lavi, Lena, and Kanda around as well helps. Just more people to keep watch over Amber and keep her grounded.

Though to be fair, this is going to be the first time Allen has ever seen these creatures and not heard about them from Amber and the others, and sending seasoned warriors of his army first just made sense at the moment, no need to throw someone unprepared into the den head first.

"All clear up here," Fair shouted down, hanging over the cliff top with a stupid grin and no care that he could literally fall and break his bones if pushed wrong.

Allen looked up to see that Fair and Sankada had reached the top of the first cliff face, and then sighed. "I'm not evil. I'm not going to shove him off the cliff just for fun." He then looked down at Amber. "Ready? You can still turn back now, just tell me where to go and we can send you back home."

Amber looked between Allen and Fair, then nodded. "I'm ready. Just don't mess up my clothes. I spent forever hand making this." Two small chuckles and a 'tch' from behind and then two aborted laughs from above followed that statement.

Allen sighed and rolled his eyes. Then he turned around to face Lena, Lavi, and Kanda. "Okay laugh it up. The more you laugh the more you piss me off. Kanda get over here."

Lavi and Lena shut up quickly after that, as Kanda made his way to Allen and Amber.

"How are we getting up the cliff? Are we climbing as well?" Kanda asked as he approached.

Allen shook his head. "No, but you do need to be still okay? I need to lift Amber up to Fair, cause she can't climb this part."

"What?"

"I'm going to stand on your shoulders to lift Amber, who might need to stand on my shoulders."

And then before Kanda could say no, because screw Allen being his lover, he had more pride than to be used as a stepping stool, Allen had already turned and grabbed Amber and backflipped onto Kanda's shoulders, all with a shit-eating grin that showed just how much he knew this pissed Kanda off.

"OI!"

"Don't worry Kanda!" Allen laughed, balancing expertly on Kanda's shoulders as Amber slowly stood up to reach the top of the cliff. "My old man is a clown by heart, I can do anything acrobatic and stupid and do it expertly. I was trained to do these things at a young age, and then keeping up with it was the only reason I survived Master Cross."

"Tch."

Lena and Lavi were staring in shock, while also holding back their chuckles.

"Reach your hand out Amber, I got you," Fair said as he reached down to grab Amber. As soon as he had her hand, he pulled her up. "Up safe and sound, princess."

"So, Lavi's hammer can extend and carry two or three people safely, so enjoy that," Allen said as he, with amazing grace and skill cause Kanda was trying to grab his legs to drag him off his shoulders, flipped up to the top of the cliff and grabbed Sankada's hand to climb the rest of what he couldn't jump.

"Damnnit Moyashi!"

"Come on Kanda," Lena called, already grabbing onto Lavi. "Grab the handle and you can smack Allen around when we get up there."

And so, Kanda grabbed the handle of the hammer and got ready to rip into Allen with Mugen. Only, they went to high, and Kanda was almost sickened by what he saw. Above them, slowly swarming down the mountain towards the others, but also hidden from them, were thousands of rotten, decomposing, pussing, and bleeding monsters. Things were not going to be easy getting up this mountain.


	7. The Horde, the Monster, and the Betrayal

_Family Matters_

_Chapter 8_

_The Horde, the Monster, and the Betrayal_

~DGRAYMAN~

The second Kanda, Lavi, and Lenalee landed on the cliff with Allen and the others, Kanda was pulling his sword out and marching right over to them.

"Allen!" Lavi shouted. "Thousands of those things are approaching from higher up. They are hidden behind the rocks and jagged cliff faces."

"Moyashi," Kanda growled as he reached Allen and the others. "Can you fight them? Have you ever fought them?"

"Hey now-" Fair began, only for Allen to raise his hand to silence him.

Allen looked Kanda right in the eye, not backing down as his glare grew sharper as he stayed silent. "No, I have not fought them before. I have never even seen them. If you think I won't be able to handle the horde at your side say so now, or hold your tongue."

Kanda shook his head, his eyes shifting to Amber long enough for Allen to glance at her before meeting Kanda's eyes again. His voice was lowered for only Allen to hear when he spoke again. "It's not you I'm worried about. Amber is still young and a warrior or not, those things are worse then what we faced at the pavilion. They are much more rotten and decaying. I am worried about her and if she can handle this. Leader, Prince, General, or whatever you are, I think you should stay at the back and watch over her."

Allen nodded his head. "I'm all those titles by the way, plus you're Lover. But I do agree. I would have put her at the back where she was less out of the way anyway. Sankada and Fair have big weapons and they almost cut me in half by accident the last time we fought together, and I was on the other side of the battlefield."

Kanda nodded, then turned on his heel and looked up at the mountain, clearly directing his thoughts to where the horde could approach and where they couldn't.

Lavi came closer with Lenalee at his side. "From the looks of the mountain range between us they can only come from three directions. The central path, and the two smaller paths. Unless they want to risk losing members to scale the jagged and broken cliffs."

"If they have any sense of self-preservation they won't, the cliffs would make them travel upside down to cross them," Lena stated while Kanda hummed in agreement.

"Well, Prince Allen?" Fair asked.

Allen sighed and moved to stand by Kanda's side, then looked at the three paths. The central path was the one they needed to go through and was the biggest and widest of the three paths. More could come through that way and would be harder to watch and defend. At least three people would be needed to guard the path and to fight to stop any of them from getting through or anyone to be too overwhelmed. The smaller two paths would only need one person watching them each, but that was only what they saw from those paths. More could come through from other branching paths, or the two could connect to the main path, or they wouldn't have to defend the two paths because the horde couldn't reach those paths. They would need five people min to protect all three paths. But against a horde of thousands? Could they even get through this alive? Could they avoid getting badly injured and ripped apart if they did manage to survive?

"Moyashi," Kanda started, catching Allen's attention. "If things start going south, you and Amber need to get out alive, got it?"

Allen's head shot up to look at Kanda, protests already on his tongue, but they all died when he saw the look in Kanda's eyes. Love, adoration, and cold hard stubborn will lit his eyes. Allen looked around at the others, they all had the same look. Allen couldn't... He didn't...

"If anything goes south we get out together or we die together," Amber declared suddenly, moving to stand next to Allen instead of behind him where he couldn't see her. Her eyes were alive with an iron will and fire that wouldn't die, and could possibly scare Cross if directed at him with the proper malice. "I would much rather die helping people and trying to stop this madness, then escape and live on knowing people died trying to fix my mistakes. If anyone has a problem with that you can knock me out and drag me off yourself, and I'm sure my Nii-san feels the same way."

"What Amber said," Allen stated dumbly, then took a deep breath to gather himself again, it wouldn't help anything to be scatterbrained at the moment. "We need to defend the paths, make a stand here unless Lavi can spot a better position to defend."

"Why not me or Fair?" Sankada asked, narrowing her eyes at Lavi, Kanda, and Lena. "We haven't seen the monsters, they could be lying to us for all we know. Why do you trust them so easily to be telling the truth?"

Lavi blinked, or winked, and grinned at Sankada. "Cause little Moyashi-chan here knows us. He worked with all of us as an exorcist and knows how we operate. He may be your Prince, but we have known and worked with him longer then you guys have. We have helped him and fought beside him when he was defenseless and blind, he has seen us at our best and our worst, and so have we. Our Moyashi would sooner take our word then anyone else's when it comes to upcoming fights or plans for battle strategies."

Sankada opened her mouth to argue, only for Fair to put his hand on her shoulder and shake his head. "He has a point Sankada. We may be hardened warriors, but these kids have worked together for at least a year, and have been fighting for longer. Let them make the plan and we will advise as they go. We trust them about the number of monsters, and their skills."

Sankada sighed and closed her eyes, shifting her weight to lean backwards slightly. "Fine."

Allen frowned at Sankada but shook his head. He didn't have time or the leisure to wonder about why Sankada was acting stranger, he needed to concentrate on the problem at hand.

"Kanda, Lena, and I will take the middle path, Sankada and Fair will cover the side paths," Lavi began, already planning out loud, his one eye set in determination. "Allen and Amber you can either help us with the center path or stay back to jump in as needed for all the paths."

"I'll help with the side paths as needed," Amber started. "I'm not skilled enough with my blade to be part of the main battle."

"I'll help with the main path and break off if someone else needs help on another path," Allen said, looking off into the distance. "How far away did you say they were Lavi?"

Lavi opened his mouth to respond, but froze when Allen's left eye activated.

"Allen?" Lena asked, already activating her Dark Boots, Kanda and Lavi getting their innocence ready as well.

Allen stared straight ahead, not responding to anything, not saying anything, eye still activated and looking towards where the horde was approaching from.

~DGRAYMAN~

**_'Block his sight or close his eyes_****_!' _**The voice screamed suddenly, almost making Kanda jump in shock. Kanda did blink out of his shock though and rushed to comply with the order. **_'Whatever is up in the mountains is not just a simple rotten experiment. Something else is happening up there, something much eviler.'_**

"Moyashi, close your eyes!" Kanda demanded, turning Allen away from the mountain by force and using his hands to block Allen's sight. "Block them out and focus on me and my voice. Can you do that?"

Allen started shaking, then slowly moved his hands up to grab onto Kanda's shirt. Kanda mentally sighed, his Moyashi was responding to him.

"Keep listening to me, Aren," Kanda whispered, moving his hands from Allen's face and wrapping his arms around him, pulling Allen's face into his chest. "I'm right here, you're going to be fine, everything is going to be fine. Just relax and listen to my heartbeat and voice."

Allen continued to shake in Kanda's arm, but his shaking was slowly lessening, his body slowly relaxing. Kanda nodded to himself and looked up at Lena and Lavi. He knew they were worried about his Moyashi, his Aren, but he couldn't let anyone else be distracted from the things coming down the mountain to them.

"Kanda protect Allen okay? Lena and I got the center path," Lavi said, keeping his voice heard but calming, no need to cause Allen any more stress. "Amber I'll need you to provide backup for us along with Sankada and Fair. Allen is clearly in no state to fight what's coming down the mountain and Kanda is the only one that could possibly protect him without causing him unneeded stress at the moment."

Amber nodded, Lena shifted to face the center path, and Sankada and Fair moved to the side paths. Lavi nodded and crouched next to Amber to rub her head before nodding to Kanda and turning to face the center path just as the first sound of metal on rocks was heard. Kanda closed his eyes to ignore his surroundings and only focus on his Moyashi and keeping him calm.

**_'Stay calm and_**** relax,'** the voice said softly, understanding that the one in Kanda's arms didn't need to be scared anymore by Kanda tensing because of the sudden voice. **_'Our mate is suffering because of his curse. I wish I had the knowledge and power on how to remove his curse, then he wouldn't suffer so.'_**

_'Moyashi sees his curse as a blessing,'_ Kanda responded mentally. _'He sees no problem with it, and always fights to free the tormented souls he sees through it. He has a noble reason to fight his enemies where I fight just for the destruction of the enemy, I do not care for the souls he sees. It has caused many problems and fights between us during our first few months knowing each other.'_

**_'He might not see a problem with it,' _**was the response. **_'But you can see how he suffers. What he saw was enough to cause him to be out of the fight before it even began, caused us to have to be here to comfort and protect him while the others face this horde, to face their possible deaths because we can't help them fight.'_**

_'They have this handled,'_ Kanda stated. _'There is no one else I would rather fight with or be protected by then Lavi and Lena, and they won't stop until they take their last breaths, nor will they let anyone die before them. It's almost like a fucking competition with the Moyashi about who can do the most self-sacrificing thing and live.'_

Kanda opened his eyes to look on at the others and to see how they were doing, except when he opened his eyes all he saw was the blood-red and scarred tissue of the same monster that was at the pavilion. The five small eyes on its head and the two large eyes on its arms focusing on Kanda and Allen, its scarred and bloody body was just out of striking distance of Mugen, if Kanda could grab it before the thing got violent.

"Hello Dragon Boy," it growled, its mutated and multiple voices low and soothing. "Your mate there can see our souls, can see what those men have done to us under orders of the evil man and his fat companion."

"What do you want?" Kanda growled, holding his Moyashi to him with one hand, his other pulling Mugen out. "Why haven't you attacked us yet?"

"Why would I attack the man who holds the key to our salvation?" The thing said, raising its clawed hand up to reach out towards his Moyashi. Kanda quickly swiped Mugen at the offending appendage.

"Back off," He growled, moving his Moyashi behind him. "Leave him alone before you lose your head."

The thing only smiled, its rows and rows of bladed teeth visible. Kanda barely had enough time to raise Mugen to block the things lunge. It was faster than he thought, having moved from a seated position to forcing him to defend in a span of less than five seconds.

"Moyashi I need you to stay behind me," Kanda grunted out, letting go of Allen to grip Mugen with two hands, forcing the monster back with brute strength alone.

"Kanda," Allen weakly whimpered out. Kanda heard the thud as Allen fell to the ground, he glanced back and down at Allen to see his Moyashi was passed out on the ground.

Kanda growled and lashed out at the creature before him. "As soon as you're dead I can tend to the Moyashi, you damn monster!"

Kanda lashed out, his sword dancing faster than the eye could see, cutting left and right, up and down, and diagonally. He moved with deadly grace, almost as if dancing with death. The monster moved almost as smoothly as Kanda, but more deadly, as it had more weapons at its disposal. Kanda had to evade and outmaneuver the blades on its hands and feet, its bladed teeth, and its budging body when it tried to crush him. All Kanda had to fight with was Mugen, and it was hard to fight and protect the Moyashi at the same time, even if he made it look easy.

"Damnit!" Kanda shouted, jumping back from a slash with its front bladed hands. He had been pushed back to where the fight had started, except he was almost stepping on Allen's limp body. "Wake up Moyashi! I need help!"

When the thing stopped approaching and looked behind it, Kanda took the chance to glance around at the others, pleased to see they were still going strong and the horde was almost gone, but there were still too many for someone to come help him, even Amber was deep in the remaining horde cutting down opponents left and right. That meant that unless Allen woke up, he was on his own.

"They are almost all dead," the thing said, sitting back down on its hind legs like a dog. "I can't blame them for being this way. They can't get free from this damnation without innocence destroying the dark matter keeping them alive. They flocked when they felt salvation near, but they go into a frenzy because of the Dark Matter's desire to destroy the innocence. You can never understand what it's like to know you can be free but are forced to fight and fight and fight until your body collapses and then is remade or you're forced into another body with a host. You will never know my pain, my friend's pain, my family's pain. You will never understand."

Kanda stayed on guard, even if it wasn't attacking now, it would attack again in seconds if given a chance, but even all the times he hit it, he never made even a scratch on it. He couldn't win alone.

"Your mate holds our salvation," It started again, looking beyond Kanda at Allen. "Bring him to the top of the mountain before they have a chance to bring those who were cut down but not destroyed back again. Please, I can't stand hearing my family cry to be freed, to be released from this torment any longer."

Kanda blinked in surprise, only for the thing to be gone when his eyes were back open. A quick shift of his foot let him know Allen was still behind him on the ground, so Kanda scanned the area as he crouched down and gently pulled Allen back into his arms, only relaxing as no sign of the creature was left, other than the cuts he had gotten from being too slow to avoid the blades.

Kanda only let himself fall back to the ground when he saw Amber cut the last of the horde down. He closed his eyes and listened as the others approached, shifting so Allen was sitting in his lap, his head resting against his neck and above his heart. He winced slightly as he pulled his Moyashi closer to himself, and forcing pressure onto his wounded side.

"That horde was crazy," Lavi complained before the sound of a body hitting the ground to his right was heard. Two softer plops indicated that Amber and Lena had also fallen to the ground, Lena probably by Lavi's side, and Amber resting against Kanda's right side.

Kanda opened his eyes to see how everyone faired, and a quick scan of everyone showed him that no one was horribly wounded, only a few tears in their clothes. Kanda nodded, moving his eyes down to Allen checking him for any wounds he might have missed when he picked him up.

"We move further when Allen regains consciousness," Kanda said, keeping his voice monotone and devoid of his own pain. His side was burning now.

**_'You need to tell someone about your side,'_** the voice demanded. **_'I can feel the wrongness of the wound.'_**

Kanda groaned, and shook his head, everything was going fuzzy.

"Lavi," Kanda managed to choke out. "Left side." Then everything went black, and Kanda was only aware enough to hear Lavi shout something, before he hit the ground on his left side and darkness consumed him.

~DGRAYMAN~

"You know if you keep staring out the window people will think their King doesn't want to do his duties, right?" A finely dressed young man said as he entered the throne room. His royal suit complementing his pale brown skin and golden eyes. He strode right up to the fair-skinned man on the throne who looked like him, but with long brown hair and lighter golden eyes.

"I'm sorry Nea," He sighed, looking at the young man before him. "I'm just worried about the children. It's been two days since Timcampy came back to us with a message from Lavi saying that Allen and Kanda were too injured to move and they couldn't return to us for treatment without making them worse."

Nea smiled and got closer to the man on the throne, stopping before him and leaning down to hug him. "They will be fine Mana," Nea stated. "They have been through worse. If it will make you feel better, once I get control of the ARK again, I will go and bring them all home."

"Thank you Nea," Mana whispered, hugging Nea back.

"Your welcome, big brother."

Mana smiled and tugged Nea down into his lap. "Now why are you awake this late at night?"

Nea mumbled something illegible into Mana's neck, then curled closer to him.

"Repeat louder Nea."

"I had a dream about the Earl taking over the Kingdom and forcing me to marry him and be his queen," Nea whispered softly. "Mana, last time I had these kinds of dreams, the earl tried to kill you and force me to be by his side."

Mana frowned and held Nea closer. "Even if something bad does happen, the Earl will never take the kingdom or you away from this family. He will never be a part of this family, willingly or not."

"Mana?" Came a timid voice from the doorway. "The advisors are here demanding an audience with you. They brought someone with them."

"Ellenia come in and speak with me privately before the advisors come in," Mana called soothingly. Ellenia nodded and entered the room, closing the doors behind her. "Tell me about this man they brought."

"He is fat and looks like a clown," Ellenia said, approaching the throne chair and the two men still cuddling on it. "He talks like he knows you, calling you a traitor and a lying bastard. He says he can get rid of you, only if the advisors take his side and help him get you off the throne and make Nea stay with him."

Mana and Nea both paled, shared a look, and then pulled Ellenia closer to them. Mana kept looking towards the door, while Nea held Ellenia closer to them and started taking deep calming breaths.

"Mana? What's going on?" Ellenia asked confused.

Mana shook his head. "Ellenia sweetie, I need you to listen to me carefully. That man cannot be allowed to get close to Nea or me. His name is the Millennium Earl and he will kill you and me, our children, and our people. He also has an unhealthy obsession with Nea and will most likely either kill Nea or force him into doing things Nea doesn't want to do."

"He wants to destroy the world and bring about the end of all life, just because he can and he believes he is the rightful ruler of the world." Nea forced out, his panic evident from his trembling and rushed words. "Because he knows that the Noah who follow him are all made to follow God's will, he tells them they are the true apostles and that they need to end the reign of the false God that the Exorcists dedicate their lives to so they can free the world of corruption and start the world anew in the right direction."

"Nea? What are you talking about?" Ellenia asked, carefully pulling Nea into her arms instead of Mana's lap. "What God?"

Mana sighed. "The God the exorcists work under and the God the Noah are born to love and work for are the same."

"But because the Earl is corruption personified, he has found a way to make it so all the Noah who follow him can't hear God or be close to him like we should," Nea whispered, curling closer to Ellenia. "It's because of the Earl and his control that the thirteen that follow him are losing their minds and their lives. It's because of him that Allen can't be with the other Noah as family. It's because of him that everyone is fighting and dying. And it's because of him that our family had never been safe or had a moment to just feel secure anywhere."

"So why would you let him into our kingdom?" Ellenia asked. "Castela has the power to keep people out if asked, right?"

"One of the Advisors betrayed you," came a childish giggle from behind Mana. "He opened a path for the Earl to get in so that he could remove you from the throne."

Nea and Mana swung around, in Mana's case he jumped out of his chair and turned at the same time, Nea pushing Ellenia behind him. Road Kamelot was sitting on the top of the throne chair, grinning down at them, her giant rainbow lollipop in her mouth. She looked out of place in her white dress while in her human form, but at the same time, it looked like she was dressing up almost like a fairy, if the shimmering dark green wings behind her were any indication.

"How did you get in here?" Mana growled, arms spread out to keep Road from getting to his family. "I didn't feel a doorway opening in my kingdom."

"I walked through the barrier with Wise," Road answered. She jumped off the throne chair, the wings fluttering behind her. "I came to help you. The Earl has gone insane. Wise is currently with the Earl trying to keep everyone away from this room, so you should thank him when he comes back around."

"Help us how?" Nea questioned, hand brushing against the hilt of the dagger he keeps hidden at his hip, ready to attack her, but knowing it won't do anything to the girl. "Why not bring the Earl here yourselves?"

Road glared at Nea. "I don't care for you, or for that woman behind you, Fourteenth," She began. "But I do care for Mana, the only Noah who truly saw me as a person and not just another Noah, who actually cared about being my Uncle, until the Earl killed him. If it wasn't for Wise returning to us when he did, I would have forgotten Mana even existed. And I don't want to forget my favorite Uncle."

"Why should we trust you?" Mana growled out, watching the girl carefully. He was ready to get his family far from her.

"Because you have no choice but to trust me," Road said softly, her eyes soft but serious. "Wise and I are risking our lives to protect you. The Earl didn't even agree to let us come, we followed him without permission. But that doesn't matter now, what matters is getting all three of you away from this room, the Earl is coming."

Mana and Nea froze, turning to listen to the now hearable footsteps heading for the room. The looked at each other and then Nea nodded. Mana understood. He turned back to Road, lowering his arms. "Okay. What do we have to do? Neither Nea or I are strong enough yet to fight the Earl."

Road nodded, then turned her back on them, wings fluttering gently. "I like being here, being home. It lets me be my true self, lets me be free like I should be. We can't leave this Kingdom, or I will turn on you and give you to him. We need to get to a place the Advisors and the Earl can't reach. We need to get to a safe place. Where is the safest where absolutely no one can get in without your permission, Uncle."

Mana softened his gaze, of course, Road was free from the corruption here, he had made it so no Noah could be corrupted here unless their souls were already pitch black.

"The castle core is safest. Ellenia hold on to Nea, Road come closer and hold onto my hand, it can get rough getting to the core."

Road was smiling when she turned around and launched herself at Mana, curling into his side as she held his hand. "Thank you for not kicking us out, Uncle Mana!"

Mana nodded, then mentally called for Castela to bring them down to her. He wasn't going to let anything hurt his family.

When the Advisors slammed the door open not even a minute later, they were greeted by an empty throne room and no sign of their King or where he went. The white-haired man behind them smiled and then walked backwards into the wall, smiling as he felt Castela pulling him closer to her and down to the others.

When the Advisors turned around to yell at the white-haired young man about wasting their time, they saw no one, and the murderous aura being produced by the fat man with them was enough to keep them quiet and subdued.

"That man took you away from me again," He growled out, eyes narrowed and glaring at the throne chair. "He won't stay in the way for much longer my beloved. You will be mine again."


	8. The King's Trouble, The Monster Nest

_Family Matters_

_Chapter 9_

_The King's Trouble, The Monster Nest, and The Assassination_

~DGRAYMAN~

The pavilion was silent as the group shifted uneasily. It would have been hilarious from an outsider's point of view. Two grown men and a grown woman were watching a teen and child with fear and suspicion, but no one was around, or awake in Castela's case, to laugh at the King of Malicka, his wife, and his brother watching Road and Wisely Kamelot like they were going to stab them in the back or betray them. For the most part, Road didn't really care that the three were watching her, or that the air was thick with tension, no, she was enjoying the feeling of having her wings again, of feeling like the child she really was, free from the controlling nature of the dark matter and the Millennium Earl.

"Why is the Earl here," Mana finally asked out loud, his arm twitching as if wanting to attack the two before him. He just might have, if Ellenia wasn't holding his arm and Nea holding onto the back of his shirt in order to stabilize himself, after being so close to the Earl. "What reason does he have for coming himself instead of sending more of his Akuma?'

"He's tired of always being pushed back by your barrier and armies," Road stated, before jumping into the air to swirl around in circles with her wings. "He thinks that killing you will end this war, and he gets Nea as a prize."

"As much as I hate that word choice," Wisely started. "She has a point. The Earl sees you and your kingdom as one of the only things left he doesn't own and wants to destroy it. He wants everything in this kingdom dead and gone. Everything but Nea."

"Why me?" Nea asked softly, pulling himself closer to Mana. "Why does he want me so badly?"

"Because he's a sick twisted bastard," Road spat out. "You saw how bad I was under the influence of the Dark Matter and with the Earl the only one constant in my life. He's much worse than me." Road turned in the air to look right at Nea, her eyes dead serious, her gaze hardened. "The Earl wants the one man who ever showed him even a slight hint of love beyond that of a child or sibling. He saw that in you, even if you never saw him that way. He wants to get you for himself and he will not stop until he has you for himself."

"Moral of the story is, stab him until he dies with a sword, or run like the dogs of hell are at your heals."

Nea sighed and finally collapsed to the ground in exhaustion, his sleepless nights finally catching up to him. "First we get the news that Allen and the others are having a hell of a time on the mountain, then the damn dreams of the bastard, and now said bastard is hunting me down in my own haven. Can my life get any worse?"

Road perched up at the mention of Allen, while Mana and Ellenia also collapsed to the ground beside Nea. Wisely sighed, then reached over and flicked Road on the nose.

"Now is not the time to daydream about the boy, Road," Wisely sighed. He was really getting tired of having to watch over the young Allen Addict. (An Allen Addict is someone addicted to Allen and only wants to be around him and have him all to themselves. They are capable of functioning when Allen isn't around, but the mention of his name or seeing him can cause them to daydream about things better left unsaid, and in Wisely's case, not thought. Case in point: Kanda is an Allen Addict, but he is basically Allen's boyfriend at the moment, so it's acceptable to think of the things he wants to do to Allen's lean, sexy, and tempting body.)

"Who let the Earl in?" Ellenia asked, turning to Wisely, her hands folded in her lap, her body positioned slightly before Nea and behind Mana. Protecting Nea but unable to protect herself, is what the position screamed to Wisely. "Who was stupid enough to let that bastard in even though we have laws and rules that keep that bastard out. Tell me."

Unable to fight, but damn scary is what she was, Wisely corrected himself mentally when he saw the dark aura forming around her. He also noticed that Mana and Nea had shifted slightly away from her as if wanting to get away from her without drawing her attention.

"I don't know," Wisely forced out, proud that his voice didn't show how terrified he was of the female before him. "I haven't been able to read any of the adviser's minds since we walked in with the Earl. I can tell you they were all there to see us come through, but I couldn't tell you who opened the way for us into the kingdom."

Mana growled. "Probably one of the older ones who are displeased with the fact that my son wants an outsider as his spouse instead of one of their races strongest warriors daughter."

Wisely blinked in confusion, and then reached out to see if he could gain any knowledge from the thoughts of the three. Only to visibly reel back in pain as he was stopped in a very painful manner.

"What the hell is surrounding your minds?" Wisely whimpered out, holding his head. "Not anyone else in this kingdom hurt me when I reached out to see what they were thinking. Not even those fat bastards you call advisers!"

"Sorry Wise," Nea called out from his position laying on the floor, sounding much more like himself than before. "That would be my fault. I adjusted the barriers during the last break-in so now no Noah can have their mind read, didn't realize it would hurt you. I'll fix it when we get rid of the damn Earl."

"Apology not needed," Wisely called out, moving slowly to pass both Mana and Ellenia so he could sit next to Nea, smiling softly when Nea pulled him onto the floor to engulf in a hug. "Your feeling better it seems."

"Castela does wonders to help calm my nerves when this happens," Nea responded tiredly, holding Wisely in a loose grip. "She is the only one I want in my head, so she is the only one going to be in the royal family's heads."

"You know we meant to keep her a secret from them until we could one hundred percent trust them, right?" Mana laughed out, chuckling as Road flung herself onto this back to cling to him like an excited child would.

"But you can trust us, Mana!" She giggled. "I would have forgone warning you if you couldn't. I mean really, what is the point in making my life harder if I'm trying to kill you for the Earl by warning you and helping you escape from the Earl? Gosh, you didn't think before you spoke did you?"

"Wait," Wisely said softly. He had moved in Nea's arms to lay curled against his side and half on his chest, his eyes slowly drifting closed, his head resting above Nea's heart. "If you made it so the Noah can't have their minds read while inside the kingdom, then why am I still able to read Road's?"

"Cause you weren't here when the barrier was updated, only me, Mana, and Allen were here, so only we were affected."

"As nice as it is relaxing here like this with your siblings, Mana," Ellenia began, moving her eyes to look towards the dark silhouette of the mountains in the distance. "I feel as if we should be doing something else right now. At the rate we are going, Allen and the others are going to come back to us needing assistance and we won't be able to help as the bastard is still in our kingdom."

"Do nothing," came a gruff but smooth voice from the shadows of the pavilion, the owner unseen. "You just sit there and stay safe, I'll do all the work like I normally do."

Mana reacted quickly, throwing a dagger into the shadows, and then groaned when the sound of the dagger hitting crystal rang out instead of flesh. "Bastard shows up whenever he wants and does whatever he wants."

"If he breaks something, I'm not paying for it," Nea quickly yelped as Mana turned to face him. "And don't let him have any debts towards you, they will never get paid back! Cause I'm not paying his debts!"

Mana growled and stood up to retrieve his dagger. "First it's Allen and Kanda collapsing during a fight with those monsters, who Allen has confirmed before passing out, are some kind of twisted Akuma. Then it's the Earl getting into our kingdom because one or more advisers don't like how things are going right now politically inside the royal family and clearly don't care that we are at war with the very man they let in and now our entire kingdom is in danger because of their choice. Then its that bastard coming into the equation, where I have no control over what he does like everyone else ever. What's next? Allen is pregnant with Kanda's child? Nea actually gets a lover? This is all coming down faster then even I can process or fix!"

"Careful what you say, brother," Nea spoke up from the ground. "For all we know both of those things can happen sooner than later before this Earl mess is cleaned up."

Castela opened her eyes, watching the group in her pavilion with a smile on her face. She was going to have fun making all of them freak out when Allen and the others returned from the mountain. Allen pregnant indeed.

~DGRAYMAN~

"Okay Fair," a voice rang from somewhere nearby. "I searched the labs for anything we can use for bandages or medicine, but I couldn't find anything not already moth-eaten or covered in blood or feces."

"Damn!" came the reply. "Your friend Kanda really needs bandages and soon, our shirts aren't meant to be torn apart and used this way. Sankada any word on Allen's condition?"

"No, unfortunately," came a voice closer to him. "He is showing no signs of waking up, but Kanda might be pulling back into consciousness soon if he's not already awake, but weak."

Kanda found it a struggle to open his eyes to look up at the woman watching him while tending to his wound. He hated how weak he felt and was irritated he wasn't healing as fast as he should have been. Turning his head to look around was a struggle as well, but when he managed he saw Allen laying on a cot beside him unconscious and hooked up to multiple machines, machines that looked like they were monitoring him and keeping him alive.

"What happened?" Kanda managed, his mouth dry and his throat protesting every word.

"Glad your awake, boy," Sankada muttered, moving to bring a cup of water to Kanda. "Drink it slowly now or you'll end up doing more harm than good. Questions will have to wait until the other boy gets back."

Kanda narrowed his eyes in disdain as he found he was too weak to raise his hand to grab the offered up, he hated feeling so weak. Sankada only smiled lightly and moved him into a sitting position and helped him drink without a word about anything. When Kanda was done with the cup he looked around the room again, happy that it was taking less energy to move his eyes and head than before, and took stock of everything around him.

The room he had awoken in had the two cots him and Allen were laying in placed in the corner farthest from the doors, the medical machines hooked to Allen monitoring him placed so people could still move between the cots and the machines without messing anything up. In the middle of the room was a metal table covered in papers and books, that Fair and Lenalee were bowed over and talking about, the conversation getting heated as they argued about something before them. The corner opposite him had a freezer and a floor to ceiling cabinet, four plastic chairs, and a trash can with empty food bags and ripped paper spilling out of it. The wall with the doors was empty, but tables and more reinforced chairs were thrown before it as a blockade, a gap big enough for one person to slip through sideways leading out into the area beyond. The lighting twitched and flicked more like they were in one of those crappy horror films Lavi had spoken volumes about before shit got worse for the order. Speaking of Lavi, both him and Amber were nowhere to be seen in the room.

"Where are the others?" Kanda asked, voice still scratchy from not being used but still stronger and easier to understand.

"I said all questions have to wait," Sankada scoffed lightly, but then shook her head. "He went with Amber to go clear out and explore another floor of this place. They haven't returned yet, but they should be back soon. If they don't return by the time Fair's mental clock hits five were going to head out to find them."

"Why are they alone? Those things need more than just two people fighting them!" He growled out.

"Because this place is small enough that only two people are needed to fight, but all of us are needed to search for supplies or hints at to what's going on here," Came a response from the direction of the table. A quick glance showed Fair walking over to them and Lenalee nowhere to be found. "At least that's what I believe. Miss Lee is a stubborn one and believes only she is needed to look while we stay and watch over you guys. Glad to see your awake by the way."

It took Kanda a moment once Fair plopped down onto his cot to realize that something was wrong, another to realize Fair was shirtless. "Where is your shirt? Isn't it dangerous to go around without one?"

Fair laughed and pointed to Kanda's chest. "You're wearing it. We had to cut your shirt off and rip it apart to get your wound bandaged up, when we got here we had to rip up mine and use it as bandages instead as yours was already soaked in blood. And yes, it's dangerous to go around without a shirt in this place, but what other choice do we have? Bandages were either not included in this place or they were hidden or all used up during the experiments."

"So we made it to the Labs?" Kanda asked, looking down at the black fabric encircling his chest. The bastard had cut right beside the tattoo on his chest, and any deeper based on what Fair had said and how he was feeling, and Kanda wouldn't be alive at the moment. It made him shudder just thinking about it.

"We made it to the observatory Castela told you guys about," Fair said, looking down at the floor, all positive emotions gone. "The labs were too overrun to even attempt getting in to find help. So we kept moving and found this place before darkness fell completely. We had to move down a few floors and block off the stairs and cave in the elevators this place has, but we had no other choice to keep a place safe enough for us to tend to you and Allen and to have a place to operate out of."

"We are cleaning out floors as we go down farther," Sankada sighed, leaning against the wall beside him. "But no matter how many we kill on one floor, more just keep coming from below or above. It's like we've fallen into their nest and they are trying to get rid of us."

"We find the source of them and destroy it," Kanda said, standing up out of the bed and stretching, careful to feel his wound out during his stretch, ignoring Fair and Sankada's shouts of protest. He started walking, ripping the makeshift shirt bandage off of him as he moved to the table in the middle of the room, throwing the shirt back at Fair while he started to examine the maps and blueprints on the table. His side was still sore, but it was healed now. "How many floors does this place have?"

"We don't know," Fair said, throwing the ruined shirt into the trash can in the corner then walking over, glaring at Kanda. "And I understand you heal faster than others, but your not healed enough to be doing anything stupid, it may be sealed but you can rip it open."

"Keep your complaints silenced," Kanda replied. "How many floors have you discovered?"

"Lavi and Amber have explored and cleaned out four floors, each getting more expansive then the last going down," Sankada replied, standing across from Kanda at the table. "Lena cleared the three above us with Fair's help when she wasn't rushing around or trying to prove herself. It was with Fair that she found a control room that gave us these maps and blueprints before it crashed and died. Literally."

"A control room crashed and died?"

"It collapsed into its self," Fair clarified, moving the maps around to point to a crossed off section. "This is where the collapse happened, we can't get into this area to see if anything important is there as we can't move anything out of the way without making it worse or getting any more people hurt."

Kanda looked at the crossed off part and examined the room labels someone scribbled onto it, frowning at the weird names. He eventually sighed. "The only thing I can see that would have helped anything would be the cafeteria area in the middle, nothing else makes sense to me."

Fair sighed. "Yeah. That's the only thing we got as well. Whoever wrote these notes had a strong opinion about what those rooms were for or made up something only they understood. But the labels go over all the sheets we have. So this man had access to the entire area, so its probably code to keep intruders from finding what they are looking for."

"Code or not, we can't get into those areas," Kanda said again, also as if reminding Fair about his own words. "Lavi has been exploring the floors, has he found anything or identified any rooms that you couldn't?"

"Well that's the thing," Sankada started with a frustrated sigh. "The person only seemed to code those rooms, as we can tell and confirm that the other rooms are what they are labeled as on the blueprints and navigation maps. Something must be in there for those areas to be coded, but we can't reach it because of the collapse."

"Well, what could 'The devil bleeds red', 'Wine as old as the king', and 'Work harder' possibly mean?" Kanda growled out, becoming thoroughly pissed off.

"No more debts master," came the soft response from behind Kanda, causing him to whip around and look at Allen. "Please no more."

"Whoever his master is must of really messed him up," Fair sighed, only sparing Allen a glance before turning his attention to the map. "He keeps having nightmares about something that man did. Now back to the matter at hand."

But Kanda wasn't listening anymore to Fair, he had scooped up the map and moved closer to Allen, reading through the list of 'code' again in his head, before he stopped and looked down at Allen's unconscious form again.

He started reading the 'code' again and watched Allen. "'Wine and Women', 'disgrace', 'ugly disciple', 'pay or die'," Kanda read, listing more and more of the words together, watching as Allen's body twitched in response to every word, and then as Allen relaxed after the words ended.

"We found bandages and food!" Came the sudden shout, causing Kanda to lose his train of thought and focus on the three people entering the room.

"We also found a room on the seventh floor with better medical equipment," Lavi said after he managed to get into the room. "It's only accessible through a hand crank elevator from the tenth floor though. I checked and all the entrances are collapsed and unable to remove."

"Amber, Lavi, welcome back," Fair greeted calmly, shifting so he was leaning against the table instead of leaning over it. "We were just about to go down to find you."

"No need," Lavi cheered, placing the bags he had down on the floor by the table, then crouching down to dig through them. "Lena was exploring the floor above us for supplies when we started coming back up, so we all came back together. Also, glad to see your awake Yuu-Chan!"

"Fuck off Baka Usagi," Kanda responded, catching a slight twitch from the corner of his eye, bringing his attention back to Allen.

"But Yuu-Chan!" Lavi whined, throwing his hands in the air, while also throwing a black ribbed t-shirt at Fair. "You were asleep for a week! Why don't you love me?!"

Fair's chuckles almost hid the soft growl from beside Kanda, but he still heard it where the others didn't. Kanda stayed silent, watching both Allen and Lavi.

"Yuu-Chan!~ Say something!" Lavi cried out again, standing to pose dramatically in the way a pleading lover would.

Kanda just slipped closer to Allen's head and flicked the machines off. The cries of outrage and the shouts of "What the fuck Kanda?" were soon turned into dead silence as Lavi blinked at the suddenly sitting figure on the bed, all too aware of the blood now dripping from the new wound on his cheek.

"I did say fuck off, Baka," Kanda said, slipping onto the bed to support Allen's wobbling frame. "Those coded rooms did bring back nightmares of General Cross to Allen after all. And we all know how those go if he's suddenly snapped out of it."

"W-what?" Was all Allen said, before he collapsed back into Kanda, eyes half-lidded but aware, looking up at Kanda.

"Welcome back to the land of the living Moyashi," Kanda said softly, stroking Allen's hair out of his face. "We've been asleep for a week now. Time to get back to work, alright?"

Allen only nodded, before closing his eyes and sighing. "Okay, bring me up to speed with what's happening."

~DGRAYMAN~

An hour or two later found Allen sitting in Kanda's lap on the cot he woke up in, looking across at Lena, Lavi, and Amber who took up what he learned was Kanda's cot, with Fair and Sankada standing behind them. His stare was deadpanned, almost disappointed actually, as he watched them shift after they finished telling both Kanda and Allen everything that had happened after Allen passed out on the mountain before the fight. Of course, no one would mention that to Allen, not while it looked like Kanda was the only thing keeping Allen from killing them, and vice versa.

"Your coded rooms sound like something Cross says every time I see him," Allen groaned out. "Probably what started the 'nightmares' you guys were speaking off. Which thanks, by the way, BaKanda, for reading all of them off to me to wake me up violently."

Kanda only smirked and pulled Allen closer to him, which means tighter as there was no room between Allen's back and Kanda's torso in the first place. "I might have started it, but the Baka Usagi finished it."

"Hey!" Lavi shouted, glaring at Kanda, only to stop and look down at the floor when Allen glared at him.

"Yeah thanks for that by the way," Allen said again, glaring at Lavi. "Stop with the Yuu-Chan please, it's actually really annoying to hear it constantly."

"Okay, so what are we going to do now that Allen is awake and Kanda is not bleeding to death anymore?" Lena asked, or more like begged to try to get the conversation to go anywhere then where it was. "We still haven't reached the bottom of this place and were not finding anything important or noteworthy to point us in the direction to find the people doing this and making more monster."

"We keep doing what we've been doing," Fair sighed, moving to look over the maps on the table again. "We still have three more floors known to us that haven't been explored and two more people who can help search and clear, or just search as you both just woke up from a week-long coma, of which we don't know why Allen fell into."

"Well whatever it was," Allen said softly. "I'm better now. And I know what to look for to know if it'll happen again."

Lavi nodded and sighed. "Its late guys. Lets set up watch and get some sleep. I know me and Amber have been fighting monsters and running around for hours without a break until this."

Sankada nodded. "Get your energy up, I'll take first watch. Allen, Kanda get some rest as well. You may have just woken up, but it'll be better for you, trust me."

Everyone nodded, Lavi and Lena moving into a corner with blankets and mattresses that were barely visible with the low light, Fair and Amber moving with them, all heading over to curl up and sleep, while Allen felt Kanda move them so they were both sharing the cot together to sleep. Sankada moved to sit by the table, watching the door for any signs of monsters.

Hours after everyone had fallen asleep, Sankada started letting her mind drift towards Kanda and how he was acting again. She had seen the mark on Allen's neck, and she couldn't help but fear that something worse then monsters being made and sent after them was brewing up around them.

The mark in question was a circle with a star inside it which contained two big circles intertwined with four smaller ones inside of those. The mark of the dragon traitor from centuries ago, the one who should have no descendants to speak of and channel energy through. It made the fact that she knew next to nothing about this man who had marked her prince make her fear even worse for her kingdom and for the events going on around her.

Even after Fair relieved her for the night, her mind still turned with the events happening around her, and she finally stopped letting indecision get the best of her. Kanda Yuu would die and she would free her prince from whatever charm he was under.

Sankada was so into her thoughts and plans to free her prince, that she didn't register the silver eyes watching her from the cot, the gaze cold, deadly, and challenging.

~DGRAYMAN~

"You are all worthless," a man yelled, banging open the doors to the Adviser's Council room. He was furious and was seeing red. "You can't even organize anyone to find the fugitives! How did you even keep your positions this long?!"

When silence met his outbursts, the man stopped and glared towards the red desks and the slumped figures, getting angry that they were ignoring him. Then the smell hit him, the smell of fresh blood and gunpowder. He stopped to reassess the situation and realized that the silence wasn't because the people at the desk were ignoring him or were asleep, but because they were dead at their desks.

The man stood in the middle of the room and looked around to see if he could see anything that could lead to who had killed all the present advisers. But other then the single bullet hole between the eyes and no signs of any casing, he couldn't find anything else to lead to who it was.

"Worthless," The man growled, turning around to storm out of the room. "All of the people in this kingdom are worthless, but don't worry my dear Nea, we will be free of them soon enough."

He started towards the door, planning his next move when the doors seemed to just slam shut on their own. He seemed startled for a quick second then the words written in blood caught his attention.

** _'They let you in_ **

** _They could let you out._ **

** _But now you're in my world_ **

** _And Nea is MY PRIZE'_ **

Turning around quickly, the man examined the rest of the room, looking for any more hidden messages. The only one was on the ceiling and it made the man even more pissed off.

** _'Your hunting my friends_ **

** _You're hurting my people._ **

** _Your pawns are traitors to this land_ **

** _All who side with you will die._ **

** _Leave this realm with the door behind the head_ **

** _Or sacrifice your life!'_ **

"DAMN THAT MEDDLING BASTARD! I WILL HAVE WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY MINE AND YOU ALL WILL DIE!"


	9. The Warrior Group and It’s Problems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! So sorry this has taken so long to get out! I have had the worst mental block when it came to this story and I have had no luck writing this chapter out no matter how hard I tried to. It was horrible!
> 
> But at least I finally managed to make this chapter this up to my standards and I am now hoping you all enjoy my endless suffering while I'm writing this story!
> 
> Hope everyone is staying safe in these uncertain times! Enjoy!

_ ~DGRAYMAN~ _

_ Family Matters _

_ Chapter 10 _

_ The Warrior Group and It’s Problems _

_ ~DGRAYMAN~ _

Allen had no problems getting through to spots that gave others a hard time, so when him and Lavi found a locked door with what looked like some kind of testing room on the other side, Lavi looked at him and gave him that mischievous shit-eating grin. Allen sighed and got to work finding a few small pieces of broken metal around them and set to work picking the lock, knowing full well to say no or to argue would just result in the same thing.

Though he kinda wished he had argued because just as he stepped into the room the ground under him gave way. He quickly grabbed Lavi, who quickly grabbed the door frame and pulled him back to safer ground. To say this was the first time this happened would be lying. This was common for Allen, way too common actually. So common actually that it made Fair and Sankada suggest that Allen stayed behind with Fair looking over maps and just staying safe.

That idea was dropped after the first day, Allen just couldn’t sit still, he also wasn’t the best at making plans on paper, he had to actually see the area he would be fighting in to make a plan. Kanda had actually snorted and remarked that Allen never actually thought anything out before jumping into battle, which Lena and Lavi instantly started joking that Allen was literally planless and just went with the flow of battle and didn’t plan. Allen had to agree with them, he didn’t plan anything, not unless it was a battle against a force of enemies larger than fifty, and even then he had to physically be in the area he would be fighting in to plan, he just couldn’t plan anything with just paper maps, even photos didn’t help, and they had tried a lot of things to go into a battle with plans while they still worked for the Black Order.

Needless to say, Allen ditched every plan when he saw the area they were going to be fighting in and consulted with Lavi about the new plan, one that was more foolproof and easier to set into motion. Which made Allen the literal battle genius when given Lavi’s knowledge.

“Any chance you're just cursed with bad luck?” Lavi asked, panting after they had run from a collapsing corridor.

“Since the day I was born,” was Allen’s instant but panted response. “But even you have to agree that a base this well made and old shouldn’t be collapsing like this. Especially since we're on the floors you guys have already covered and cleaned out. We're just double-checking the area.”

“Point made,” Lavi groaned, standing straight again. “Come on, we're heading base to HQ.”

Allen nodded, took a deep breath, and instantly gagged, his head whipping back over to the collapsed corridor. “What fucking smells like death?!”

Lavi was quick to grab Allen and run to the only way up to the base floor, not stopping even when Allen shouted out in pain and yelled at him to let go of him. He had almost made it to the only uncollapsed access point when the roars started from all around them.

Lavi and Allen quickly slid to a stop, Lavi pulling his hammer out, activating it, while Allen activated his innocence and stayed close to Lavi.

“Lavi,” Allen began, his eye was starting to go crazy. “Weakness and strength.”

“Weak bodies, one hit one kill,” Lavi responded, inching closer to their only way up, they couldn’t afford to get stuck fighting these things this close to it, but he had to get to a point that he knew they couldn’t grab Allen. Allen was also all too aware of this, his head was starting to go fuzzy and his vision black again. He was feeling ill, much too ill to be able to fight. “They have deadly strong claws though, able to cut through just about everything but our innocence and Fair’s damn greatsword. The best bet is to get to the way out and to just get the fuck out of here as fast as we can while taking down about as many of them as we can. They get harder to fight in confined spaces, especially since the lower we go the more toxic and acid-like their blood gets and I don’t feel like getting out of commission for the time it takes to get the damn burn to go away again.”

“Shit,” Allen muttered. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing these things, hell keeping his eye deactivated was taking a lot more effort then he remembered it taking. “Lavi I think the best thing to do is run to the escape point and get off the floor. Get Lena and then you both come back down here and clean them up.”

Lavi made a sound of agreement and quickly grabbed Allen’s hand and shot off towards the exit point, only to have to jump back as the first wave of the monsters shot out from around the corner-cutting off their exit.

“FUCK!” Both Lavi and Allen yelled out, splitting up to avoid the large claws aimed at where they just were.

“Stay at a distance and kill them!” Lavi shouted out, making his hammer larger and swinging it at the monsters before them, their bloody and rotting bodies bursting into a rotting smelly mess. Allen was using everything in his arsenal to cut and kill the monsters, hiding behind walls and piles of rubble as they exploded. He didn’t see anything wrong with the monster's blood, but when he moved too slowly to get behind a jutting door, he screamed in agony. His bottom pant leg was soaked in the monster's blood, burning away and starting to drip onto his bare flesh. Allen quickly used his own claws to cut the blood-soaked fabric off and throw it into a corner, where the fabric was soon eaten away into nothingness. His leg was raw and burning brutally from the few drops that had touched his skin, and he found he couldn’t stand to actually stand on his burning leg.

If he was anyone else, but the highly trained circus worker turned exorcist, the monster bursting through the wall next to him with his claws ready to rip him to shreds would have done just that. But Allen didn’t have to stand on his leg to fight, just had to use innocence to drag him away from the attack and keep pressure off his leg until the battle was done. But because he was Allen Walker, something bad had to happen. It wasn’t another collapse in the building, it wasn’t getting blasted with blood again, no it was worse. The pain from his leg had taken his attention away from keeping his eye unactivated, and Allen was caught off guard by the twisted and mangled soul he found attached to the monster.

Allen’s breath caught in his throat, his body trying to force the bar he had before he left down here with Lavi back up, and his body twitched with the force of the pain and hate and sorrow and the pleas for help, for someone to save them, for someone to put them out of their misery for good. Allen felt it all, all the emotions from all the monsters, no from all the Akuma forced into living bodies, and he realized this is what hit him so hard on the mountain, the pain and suffering from thousands of these things had washed over him and their pain became his.

Allen forced himself to steady, grateful that his innocence didn’t really need him awake or aware while activated to keep him safe and to fight the Akuma, and quickly tried to count the number of the Akuma surrounding him and Lavi, then put all his focus into keeping his eye deactivated, he had to keep fighting. And fight he did, until every last one was destroyed.

“Allen?” Lavi called out, and Allen opened his eyes long enough to fall into Lavi’s arms before the pain caught up to him and darkness took over. He couldn’t even get out his warning to Lavi before he was out like a light.

~DGRAYMAN~

Kanda was out the door before Fair had even finished standing. He didn’t care about whatever shit Fair was saying, a group he was going to send out to find Allen and Lavi, he honestly couldn’t bring himself to. He had felt it earlier like fire through his veins, the pain in his head, his vision getting fuzzy and going dark around the edges, and then he couldn’t stand and put pressure on his right leg, let like he had dipped it in acid even. He knew as soon as the first symptom came what was happening. The growling from the one he shared his head with was also enough confirmation that something bad had happened to Allen, and when everything disappeared so suddenly, Kanda was already heading to the door to go down to Allen.

Only Lena, Fair, and Sankada stopped him. Amber had clung to his leg and looked up at him with those stubborn eyes he figured all Walkers had, her eyes screaming she was coming with him to find her brother. It was only because of Lenalee’s trust in Lavi that he had agreed to wait till the given time to let them come back on their own before he left, Amber trailing him dutifully behind him, keeping up with his strides easily.

Kanda would see heads roll if Allen was missing, dead, or injured beyond what they could heal.

When he got to the elevator shaft they were using to go up and down, the other three had caught up with them, not one said a word, only followed him silently and seriously down to the floor Lavi and Allen were supposed to be on. If the Baka Usagi had let anything bad happen to his Moyashi, he wouldn’t be leaving this place alive.

Though his thoughts shifted dramatically when the group turned the corner and saw the carnage surrounding the red-headed warrior, whose only response to the gasps, was to shift his body to cover something, his hammer shaking as he lifted it off the floor again.

“Lavi!” Lena cried out, quickly using her boots to pass over all the dead rotting bodies and the bloody mess to land lightly behind him, her stance showing she was ready to jump and evade Lavi’s hammer if he attacked her.

Kanda watched silently, watched as Lena helped Lavi stand, wrap her arms around him and quickly and smoothly fly him over the dozens of bodies that blocked the path. He could barely make out the white of Allen’s hair from this distance, and he honestly was surprised he could see his Moyashi at all over all the bodies.

“They kept coming,” Lavi groaned out, being supported by Fair once Lena reached them. “They kept trying to drag Allen away. I did what I could to protect him. Don’t touch his legs too much Lena.”

Lenalee nodded and quickly flew back over to Allen, her face serious. Kanda watched as Lenalee slowly and carefully lifted his Moyashi into her arms and carefully got him back over to them, Kanda taking Allen as soon Lena got into reach. And Kanda could see what Lavi meant by being careful with his legs. Covered in blood and burns, his Moyashi looked like he had been wading through acid without a care that he was destroying his body.

“Let's get back to HQ,” Fair said, helping Lavi onto his back. “We can tend to any wounds and get the story after you get some rest.”

Lavi shook his head tiredly, his head limply falling to land on Fair’s shoulder. “We have to move higher, they know Allen is here now, and they started caving in the ground under us trying to get Allen to fall into their clutches. We need to find a new base to operate out of before they make it to the floor beneath our current base.”

Fair nodded and started moving, slowing down slightly as Sankada took point, her giant shuriken ready in her hand to cut anything down that approached. When they reached the access elevator, Sankada went to go up first, only to curse and pull back out.

“The ladder we were using was destroyed going up. The only way to go is down or to make a path up ourselves.”

Fair cursed and Lena pushed herself into the opening, looking up then back to them. Kanda could see the gears turning in her head.

“Don’t,” Kanda warned her. “You could probably get Lavi and Allen up to HQ, but the rest of us are too heavy for you to carry. We have to find a new place to hole up until Allen and Lavi are better, so we go down or find a place on this floor.”

“We need the medical equipment though,” Lena looked back to the empty shaft and then back at Allen and Lavi. “I can go up and get what we need, just tell me what the really important items are and I’ll make a bag or two up so we have them.”

Kanda leaned against the wall, shifting so his Moyashi was resting more comfortably in his arms and against his chest. He watched Lena and Fair discuss what she needed to grab, content to let them do the planning and leave him out of it. He had more important things to worry about, mainly the passed out Beansprout in his arms.

Kanda shifted his attention to his Moyashi’s soft breathing, the slow rise, and fall of his chest, the expression that still showed hints of pain even while out cold, and Kanda felt the urge to kiss his Moyashi until all his pain went away, until everything was better again. He also felt the death glare coming from Sankada again. He ignored her like usual, not bothering to even acknowledge her and her obvious hate towards him. Why she hated him, he couldn’t tell you, even the voice in his head didn’t have an answer towards that.

“Is he going to be okay?” Came the soft voice from beside his left leg. Kanda looked down at Amber, then crouched so he could sit on the ground next to her, always being mindful of his Moyashi’s injured legs. She looked scared, her eyes kept glancing over at the wounds on her older brother's legs than to the dozens of bodies that they could see from a few holes in the walls at their height.

“Aren is going to be fine,” Kanda said softly, giving her a gentle smile before pulling her closer to them. “He’s stronger than you think he is and has suffered much worse than this while we were working for the Black Order.”

“You guys say the Black Order is bad,” Amber started softly, moving to hug Allen. “If it’s as bad as you say it is, why would you work for them?”

Kanda paused and looked over at Lena and Lavi, he watched as Lavi breathed deeply and evenly on Fair’s back, he watched as Lena finished planning with Fair and then leaped into the shaft to get the supplies needed, then looked down at his Moyashi. He sighed and looked Amber in the eyes, not caring if Fair and Sankada could hear him.

“Lena didn’t have a choice,” he began softly. “She stumbled upon her innocence by accident as a little girl while an exorcist was passing through her town. It recognized her as its master and they dragged her kicking and screaming away from her brother, her last family member left alive. She went through hell as she kept refusing her innocence, kept refusing to work for the people who chained her up and were going to use her as a weapon but had the gall to call themselves her family. She only accepted the innocence when her brother made it into the science department of the Black Order branch that she was at, and only then did she start to see the Black Order as family, because with her brother around, only those at Central treated them like weapons, but Lena didn’t have to worry about them coming around because they were too busy in Central HQ to care about the individual branches. At that point it was too late for her to leave, her brother was in the Black Order and they wouldn’t have let her leave them anyway.”

“Lavi is the next in line to be a Bookman,” Kanda continued, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall. “Not sure how he came across his innocence, but his duties as a Bookman brought him to the Order to record our side of the war raging outside your kingdom's lands. He broke the rules of being a Bookman of course by becoming friends with Lena, Aren, Johnny, and others back at the Order, but he doesn’t regret it, not even a little bit.”

“Allen was born with innocence in his arm and was picked up by Cross to become an exorcist, so he also had no choice in the matter. But unlike the others, I have never known anything but the Order and what they are capable of, what they will do to win the war against the Earl. Because unlike the others, as the Moyashi so bluntly said when we first arrived, I was created in a lab in one of the branches of the Black Order, an artificial body to hold the soul of a deceased exorcist. Central had the brilliant idea to try to bring the dead back to life, give them bodies and put their innocence near them and see if any of them came back to life. They only had two successes out of the entire time they put time and research into it. Me and one other boy. I kept relapsing into the memories of the past life so they called me a failure and attempted to kill me, only for the one they called a success to turn on them and kill almost everyone in those labs.”

“I thought he was dead for so long, I locked myself away behind a mask, one that keeps falling apart around you damn people, and lived my life trying not to get close to anyone ever again. But he wasn’t dead, just comatose and motionless locked away in a tank to rot. The earl set him free, turned him into an Akuma and set him on me. I would have killed him if this damn Beansprout didn’t get in the way. But I also wouldn’t have woken Nea fully by stabbing him with Mugen if he didn’t get in the way. Even after all of that, the damn brat still sent me and him off to a quiet place to die together in peace, except I didn’t die, I just healed and came back for this idiot. Only to find out he was on the run from the Order for treason and being a Noah while also trying to avoid the Noah and Akuma because apparently, the Earl had gotten too touchy-feely with him once he had sent me away with my dying friend, and it freaked him out so much he punted the Earl back into the Noah and used the ark to send them all to somewhere else.”

“You all really are forced child soldiers,” Fair whispered from somewhere close to his left, and the soft shifting of feet from farther in front of him let him know exactly where Sankada was.

“I don’t really count as a child though,” Kanda sighed, then opened his eyes to look at Sankada, he was watching her. “I don’t know how old the soul that was used to make me was, but I have only been around for ten years while my body is probably nineteen by now. I don’t keep track of my age.”

“You're still a child,” Fair stated firmly. “Okay maybe you're a young adult now, but your soul doesn’t determine your age. My soul is hundreds of years old, maybe even thousands because unlike other races, fairies are reborn to live on, to have memories of their past lives and learn from the mistakes that we have made, to better our people and ourselves. As a fairy, I could claim that I was the oldest member of the advisors to the Kings of our lands, but we don’t count how old the soul is, we count how old the body is, and you are not even twenty yet. But you have been fighting for who knows how long so you are a child soldier. You all are.”

“Dragons,” Sankada began, paused, then took a deep breath and looked straight at Kanda, her gaze clear of malice. “Dragons live long lives. We can live centuries, millennia even before we die of old age. We can also bring our lost kin back from the dead using a ritual in the place they died on the day they died, no matter how long we wait. Because of the actions of my ancestors, I will always be the last full-blooded dragon alive. I had made the decision to raise my half-kin unaware of the grounds where everyone but myself were slaughtered and doomed to rest for all eternity, all because of the actions of one dragon who wouldn’t take no for an answer and the ignorance the other dragons had as the mate of the strongest dragon was murdered and her eggs broken, even though her screams for help could be heard all the way down the mountain they all nested on.”

“I was young and stupid,” Sankada sighed, leaning against the wall behind her. “I thought when the warrior had come back, he had killed the dragon out of spite for being in his cave with his mate and eggs. I wish I could take it back now. The words that I spit out at him that night as I killed the injured and exhausted warrior, I want to take them all back. I want to take back what I did to his body. How I dragged it out of our lands and left it to rot in a place no dragon would dare to go. Every year on the anniversary of the almost extinction of the dragon race, I go back and stand guard at his cave. I stand there and drive away the young dragon who murdered the female inside the cave because she wouldn’t destroy her eggs and mate with him. And I listen to her cries as she comes to terms over and over again that her mate died outside the bounds of the mountains, that he would never return to her. I thought it was a suitable punishment for a man who murdered the entire dragon population, but I shouldn’t have punished him. I didn’t know until it was too late to change anything I had done.”

“We can live forever with the ability full-blooded dragons have. But because I am the last full-blooded dragon, I cannot with good consciousness bring back everyone but the one who didn’t deserve to be killed that night. Our souls are eternal, but we only determine age based on the size of our bodies and wings when we take on our dragon form, the larger you and your wings are, the older you are, while the smaller you and your wings are means you are younger.”

Fair smiled lightly and placed his hand gently on Kanda’s arm. “You can open up to us about anything. We are your comrades and now your friends. You are also in line to take the throne with Allen when we return and get you two married so that makes you our soon-to-be king as well. I wonder how old I’d be in dragon years based on my wings?”

Kanda snorted and found himself shifting to make room for Amber to climb onto his lap and rest closer to her brother as he watched Fair and Sankada discuss the wings Fair had sudden grown out of nowhere. He watched as the wings fluttered, a deep purple color with hints of blue and red thrown into the mix, all glowing slightly. The wings were quite big and when Fair turned to pout at something Sankada had muttered they almost disappeared from sight as thin as they were. How something so small and fragile-looking could belong to a man who carried a sword the size of him, with the muscle mass to use it and the grace of experience and skill that he had, he had no clue. Though it did make him wonder about Sankada’s wings. Did she have to go dragon to show them, or could she just summon them like Fair had done and stay looking human?

** _‘She could bring them out whenever she wants to,’_ ** came the deep throaty voice in his head.

Kanda hummed slightly, reached his arm out and pulled the Baka Usagi’s sleeping body closer to him. Fair and Sankada, even Lena could see this side of him, the side that cared, but the second the damn rabbit was awake, he was going to try to skewer him.

_ ‘You are a dragon,’ _ Kanda stated, lifting his head to resume watching what had turned into a wing measuring contest.  _ ‘Are you the one Sankada killed?’ _

The voice chuckled, and Kanda swore he felt pride swell from the thing in his head.  ** _‘Yes. I am a dragon and she did kill me. In all honesty, I can’t blame her, she did what any good knight would have done in her situation. She saw the dead bodies of her fellow dragons and she saw me covered in blood and in the center of it all. I attacked her first, didn’t even try to explain what had happened, what I had returned to. Not after everyone told me to shut up, how dare I kill a young Holy Dragon Knight, he couldn’t do any harm to any dragons because of his oath to protect us all.’_ **

_ ‘You can’t come back can you?’ _ Kanda asked, then gasped as Sankada let her wings pop free, two beautiful lotus pink wings, the thinner parts of her wings showing thin dark green strands curling all over them, both wings finished with a single spike at the end. They were larger than Fair’s wings, and Kanda could even reach out and touch the edge of the one closest to him, and they were on the other side of the room they were rooming in until Lena came back, and suddenly Kanda’s unasked question was answered. The elevator shaft was too small for either of them to use their wings to even open when inside.

** _‘You are a smart one,’_ ** the said again, praising him.  ** _‘You also have wings, my boy. We just haven’t had a breakthrough with summoning them yet. You were close to it when your mate had gotten hurt. But it wasn’t enough to activate your dragon blood completely.’_ **

_ ‘My mate?’ _ Kanda asked confused, starting to rub Allen’s arm unconsciously.  _ ‘You said he was our mate when I claimed him with you in my head.’ _

** _‘Hahaha,’_ ** he responded, his mirth and amusement flowing through to Kanda.  ** _‘It was a heat of the moment thing, had to make you believe we were one so you didn’t lose momentum and get your dragon blood fully dormant again. I mean, I don’t know about you but if I knew I had an audience I couldn’t get rid of because they were in my head, I wouldn’t have continued mating my beautiful Alecia.’_ **

Kanda snorted, louder than he meant to, and found himself staring at both Fair and Sankada who had put their wings away and were now standing before him. He cleared his throat and looked them right in the eyes.

“Can I help you?” Kanda asked, his voice softer then he meant it to be.

** _‘No mean words from you, boy,’_ ** came the response to the unspoken question.

“Who are you talking to, Kanda?” Fair asked, his head tilted to the side watching him. “You were watching us, but your eyes were kinda far away, you had the look that our king gets when Castela calls out to him and they talk mentally.” Sankada’s gaze had gone hard and dangerous again.

** _‘Truthfully my boy,’_ ** came the calm voice in his head.  ** _‘Sankada has already exposed her true feelings to us, as has the young man named Fair. They deserve the truth, though I don’t know if your exorcist friends are ready to learn the truth yet. HAHHAHA! Just think! The very creature those stupid fools were trying to capture because they believed it increased the chance to have reincarnation had a perfect pure-blood in their filthy hands and never knew!’_ **

Kanda froze, his eyes going wide, his gaze going past both Fair and Sankada. He usually had better control, but something was wrong with him today, as words he meant to think silently spilled quietly from his lips, only loud enough for both Fair and Sankada to hear.

“I’m a pure-blooded dragon?”

And then the world exploded and Kanda found his world turning black, something in him snapping to fold and hold Allen and Amber closer to him.

The last thing he heard was a shouted curse from Fair and something picking him up, Allen and Amber included, before he was out cold.

~DGRAYMAN~

When Lena returned almost an hour later she found Fair and Sankada huddled over Lavi, who was groaning in pain while stuck under a chunk of the wall.

“What happened?!” She asked, skidding to a stop beside them and looking over them all.

“Monsters stronger than the ones we have been facing until now attacked,” Fair grunted, then heaved the slab off Lavi enough for Sankada to drag him out. “They came through the walls like bombs, slamming into us and knocking us off balance. By the time we drove them off one of them had already grabbed Kanda, Allen, and Amber and had long since been gone.”

“They were prepared,” Sankada added, taking the medical bag from Lena and instantly started to tend to Lavi’s wounds. “They had grabbed them right after the walls exploded, right in a way that we had to jump back from them and not see them until the fight was over. Come on Lavi, you need to get better faster so we can get our Princes and Princess back got it?”

Lavi groaned but nodded, shifting so he could sit and check his injuries. “It hurts, but not as much as the stupid shit in Japan did. I can still fight and walk.”

“I don’t know how to respond to that.”

Lena looked at the two that had spoken at the same time and smiled, but it wasn’t friendly and open, it was guarded and steel.

“We were beaten to hell and back on a boat that lost all its passengers on the way to Japan during an Akuma attack. When we reached Japan we were covered in bandages and I couldn’t walk, Lavi had fractured ribs and injuries he really shouldn’t have been fighting with, as did the rest of the group we were with that survived. Even after all of that, we still fought against hordes of stronger Akuma then we had ever faced. We fought some of the Noah. And Allen, beaten bruised and barely able to move, had faced the Earl until General Cross showed up and intimidated the Earl into leaving with the Noah we had defeated.”

Fair and Sankada looked at the two young figures before them, so much younger then they had even trained to be fighters, but they still had more experience facing challenges and enemies in less than ideal, even horrible conditions, and to have made it out alive…

Fair watched Lavi and Lena move through the blown-out wall with ease as if they did this every day of their lives. As if they had been fighting for so long, they were ready to walk back into the fray no matter what condition they were in.

“Just how much have those kids been through?” Fair asked to the backs of the two already turning the corner to where the monsters must have come from.

“I don’t know,” Sankada answered, her voice dead and emotionless, but Fair knew her better. Sankada was pissed beyond pissed at the thought of these kids facing death head-on every day. And he had to admit it pissed him off as well, that these kids could shut off all emotion, could master their pain and suffering to go save their friends, even if they were in life-threatening condition.

Just before they caught up to them, Fair and Sankada heard something that made their blood freeze in their veins.

“If that pissed them off, just wait till they hear how Allen had his arm ripped off and a hole eaten into his heart. Explaining that Allen would have been dead, maybe even dead but brought back to life by his innocence being able to work on its own is going to tip the scales and make them feel murderous.”

“The fact that even without his innocence he still tried to join the battle to save us still blows my mind like he literally couldn’t do anything to stop the Earl, Noah, or Akuma from killing us, but he still fought to get out and join us, even when he was harnessing his innocence to bring it back into his body, his only thoughts were to save us as far as we know.”


	10. Queen of Monsters, Fun Time Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanda, Allen, and Amber learn something special and make plans, all while the Earl is falling into his executioners plan himself.
> 
> But any plan involving Nea never goes to plan, and he should know this by now.

_ Family Matters _

_ Chapter 11 _

_ Queen of Monsters, Fun Time Plans _

_ ~DGRAYMAN~ _

Everything ached on his body, every muscle screamed as he shifted. Muscles he didn’t even know he had were screaming in protest and pain. It was like he had been thrown into multiple walls and clawed at for hours, his body healing his wounds before the claws could do too much damage. Everything fucking hurt.

** _‘You need to wake up,’_ ** a faraway voice called out. ** _‘You need to wake up boy!’_ **

Wasn’t he awake though? He hurt so much he couldn’t be asleep.

** _‘KANDA!’_ ** The voice screamed again, louder and closer this time. ** _‘WAKE UP!’_ **

Kanda’s eyes shot open to find himself staring into dazed and scared silver eyes, two sets of trembling arms clinging to him in the dark place they were in. Before Kanda could say anything to the two smaller people clinging to him, the growls hit his ears.

“Calm down!” One thing growled out, its voice sounding much more like multiple men and women crying out. “Please! I brought them here to help our Queen!”

Screams and growls rang out, millions of pained voices ringing through. Allen had shoved his face into Kanda’s chest, pulling Amber closer to him and Kanda’s chests. Kanda wrapped his arms around them tighter, the black covering twitching as he shifted to hold them better.

“Calm down! They can save us!” The same thing growled out again, this time shifting backwards and bumping something against the black covering. “Listen to me! Fight the urge and listen to me!”

** _‘You need to pull your wings tighter around you,’_ ** the voice in his head rang out again. ** _‘You can’t let them get closer to your family!’_ **

Kanda groaned under his breath as the thing against the black covering pressed harder against it. Kanda didn’t really question the dragon in his head, just thought of wings wrapped around his family, and watched in awe as the black covering shifted closer to them and wrapped around them tighter, Kanda feeling every movement as muscles in the wings before him shifted in protest.

** _‘You need to relax your grip on your wings,’_ ** the voice rumbled soothingly, trying to calm Kanda down. ** _ ‘You're going to break something before you have a chance to really use them.’_ **

“Don’t make me kill you all!” Came the sudden loud shout, the growls raising in volume afterwards.

Kanda pulled his family closer to him, shifting so his wings weren’t so tight. _ ‘He had WINGS!?’ _

** _‘Worry about the wings later when your family isn’t in danger of being ripped apart!’ _ **The voice shouted out, struggling to be heard over the ever-increasing screaming growls.

“I’m sorry my family,” came the defeated sigh from in front of Kanda, and he instinctively held tighter, one hand moving down to where Mugen was attached to his hip.

Then the screams started, but instead of Kanda feeling pain, he heard the monsters surrounding them screaming in pain, heard the ripping of flesh, the snapping of bones, the blood splattering around the room, the sounds of blades dragging across the floor and then bodies slamming into the walls. Kanda could only hold Allen and Amber tighter to him, his wings fluttering around softly. He could hear the death cries, the sound of so many people crying for peace, and he had to fight not to vomit at the rotting smells coming from all around the room.

Then the room went silent.

“You can release your hold on your wings,” the creature said, blades clicking their way back to them. “I won’t hurt you.”

Kanda struggled to actually listen to the creature, the one who had turned on its own family to protect them. He knew this monster, even if he didn’t want to really think about the consequences of listening to him. But Kanda was growing tired, something was taking his energy and he had to stay awake, so he had to let go of the wings, stop making them fold around them.

“Your family is safe as long as I am here,” the thing called out softly, all the mismatched voices finally coming together to form one voice, one that had a soothing effect. “Picture your wings hanging from your back, it’s the best way to control them at the moment.”

Kanda didn’t want to really listen, he continued to struggle to pull his wings back until he felt a soft hand on his cheek. Looking down at the soft and loving silver eyes, trust shining through, Kanda felt himself relaxing as his Moyashi gently ran his other hand over the taut muscles beside the wing. He shivered as he felt a smaller hand start giving the same treatment to his other side, and slowly the wings retracted and folded themselves against his back.

When the wings were finally pulled back, Kanda slowly released his hold on Allen and Amber, his muscles protesting the movement. Allen and Amber were quick to remove themselves from Kanda’s lap, carefully helping Kanda stand and stretch out the abused muscles.

“I apologize for my family's actions towards you,” came the voice from in front of Kanda.

Allen and Amber jumped and turned around quickly, Allen wincing slightly as he put more pressure on his still untended burned leg. Sitting calmly before them, surrounded by the ripped and torn and hardly recognizable bloody corpses, was the monster that had tried to take Allen away, that had attacked Kanda and his group, and had tried to plant doubts in Kanda’s head. All five small eyes focused on Kanda, the larger two on its arms looking at Allen and Amber.

“What do you want?” Kanda growled out, his wings opening slightly to keep him upright.

“I’m sorry,” The creature said again. “I didn’t mean to let them get out before you guys had reached the Queen’s chambers.”

“What Queen?” Allen asked, lifting his hand to cover his eye. Kanda raised a brow at that sightly then shrugged it off. Whatever works to keep his eye unactivated right?

“Our Queen,” the thing started, waving at the bloody and ruined corpses of those around him. “Is the one that the fat man himself worked on. He had ruined her. Our pure Queen was turned into a breeding ground to let that fat man keep getting these mutilated and twisted bodies. We were a pet project that he deemed a failure. He tried to make us super soldiers for the war he was raging to destroy humanity. But we didn’t merge with his current weapons properly, our bodies degrading and turning to dust months after we were merged. He tried to merge us in the womb, and though we aren’t degrading after a few months, our bodies never healed from attacks, in fact, hit the weaker ones just right and they explode.”

Kanda groaned at that, he had seen that exact thing in person, Lena had gotten splattered with the guts of a monster Lavi had destroyed too close to her.

“Our Queen suffers,” the monster continued. “She doesn’t degrade like us, she doesn’t age like we do. She can’t leave her chambers. She is attached to something we can’t touch, to touch it is to destroy us completely.”

“You said the Moyashi was your salvation,” Kanda groaned out. Just how badly did he get hurt if everything burns just talking? “Explain it.”

“He is the only one around who was able to destroy the sister to this egg our Queen is attached to.”

“An Akuma Egg,” Allen whispered out, his eye widening in shock. “Take us to your Queen once our friends get here. Once I attack the Egg it will turn all of your remaining family, and even yourself, against me, and I can’t destroy it and help your Queen if I'm being attacked by all sides without backup.”

The creature before them nodded and wandered away into a hole in the wall. “Rest. I will find your friends and bring them here.”

~DGRAYMAN~

He stepped back and smirked up at his latest message for the Earl. He had to make sure Nea saw each one of these when he was done his work here. The red flush, the studders, the embarrassment and rage flashing through his eyes, it was a turn on just imagining Nea’s reactions.

Speaking of Nea, he was going to have to grab the man soon to put the last piece in place for his plan to work.

“Castela,” he began, his voice bouncing through the room, and he frowned at how he sounded more gruff and heavy then he normally was. “I’m gonna need you to drop Nea here with me momentarily. I won’t let anyone harm him while he’s with me.”

He walked towards the throne chair, smirking as he plopped himself down in it, crossing his legs and picking up the glass and bottle on the table he had put there earlier. He wanted Nea smashed for what he was about to do, cause Nea had so many issues with the Earl he wouldn’t be able to do his part of the plan sober. And no sooner had he finished thinking that did Nea fall from the ceiling and lab in his lap.

“Good evening, Nea,” He purred, wrapping one arm around Nea and offering him the glass silently. “Care for a drink?”

“What the hell Cross?!” Nea cried out after a second, his face going from confused to shocked to angry. Cross smirked, letting the hand on Nea’s hip be loose but also tight so as Nea started struggling, he could feel the muscles underneath.

“Sorry about this,” Cross sighed out, lifting the glass to Nea’s lips, the smirk and tone letting Nea know Cross wasn’t actually sorry about it in the slightest. “But if you want the fat ass out of your land I needed you for the last piece of my plan. I know how you feel about him, but I need you to be in the same room as him. Just relax and drink with me until he gets here.”

Nea frowned and stopped struggling, pushing the glass away from his lips and taking it in his hand. “You know I don’t do alcohol Cross. Especially with you around. Last time you took me drinking, if Mana wasn’t with us you would have made me do things I didn’t want to do. I don’t need that kind of blackmail on me.”

“No camera,” Cross chuckled out, guiding Nea’s hand holding the glass to his lips, making sure to keep eye contact and a strong grip on Nea’s hip to keep him in place, as he made Nea tip the contents of the drink into his mouth. The flush and eyes darting to his lips and throat made Cross smirk again, as he let Nea take the empty glass away. “Promise, the only ones to see you drunk will be me, Castela, and the Earl. And the Earl will only see you drunk long enough for him to get pissed off and not thinking straight for my bullets to tear through him.”

Nea frowned, clearly weighing the options he had in this, and Cross filled the glass with more wine. While Nea was still thinking, Cross brought the glass up to Nea’s lips and tipped it, Nea unthinkingly starting to drink the wine, before his eyes snapped down to the glass and he tried to pull away, only to be stopped by the hand Cross had brought up to hold his head in place. Once the drink was empty and Cross sure Nea had swallowed every drop, only then did he bring the glass away watching as Nea frowned down at him, the light flush on his cheeks proving Nea was still a lightweight.

No matter, one more glass of wine in Nea and he’d be more willing to participate, an intoxicated Nea was always a thrill to be around. Any added glasses were just going to get Cross more of what he actually wanted then what he needed for his plan.

“What exactly is this plan of yours, Cross?” Nea asked, fluttering his eyes and frowning as he tried to focus on Cross. “Why do I feel so unbalanced already? What the hell is in that wine?”

“The wine is my strongest brand,” Cross purred out, enjoying the way Nea’s body shivered in his arms. “You're still going to be a lightweight compared to my strongest wine, Nea. And my plan is to use the Earls's obvious lust for you to make him lose his mind enough to not pay attention to his surroundings. But for that to happen, you need to act as if we are together, cling to me, kiss me, things lovers do.”

Nea looked way too horrified and cognizant for the plan to work, Cross decided, then took the full glass and in a single go, he had the contents of the glass resting in his mouth. Nea would fight the glass, would be more on guard to prevent the glass from getting close to his lips, so Cross drank while Nea opened his mouth to say something, only to find his mouth being plundered by Cross’, the wine sliding down Nea’s throat and chin in the sloppy kiss Nea was struggling now to get out of.

Cross let him go, settled back into the throne and watched as Nea wiped his chin and coughed, his eyes glazing over as his body worked quickly on absorbing the alcohol Cross had forced him to drink. When Nea looked at Cross again, his eyes were glazed over, his breathing was irregular, and his heart rate erratic. Nea was drunk, and he was excited.

Cross pulled Nea closer so they were chest to chest, took the glass from Nea’s slackened grip, and moved so he could whisper into Nea’s ear. “If it makes this easier for you, pretend I’m the one you want to be doing these things too.”

Nea shivered, his breath catching in his throat before Cross nipped right behind the ear he had just whispered into. Nea collapsed against him, pushing himself closer, and then he was lost to the pleasured haze taking over in his drunken state.

Cross knew he probably had very little time left before the Earl entered the room, but he also knew Mana would never forgive him if he took the younger while he was too drunk to fight or consent, but he wanted to explore the body before him, had to taste Nea’s flesh for himself, even if he could never touch Nea again after this.

Shifting them so Nea was seated in the throne chair, Cross moved to kneel between Nea’s legs, his hands pulling Nea’s shirt off of his body to throw it off to the side, then leaned back to look at the angelic sight before him.

Nea, his skin darkened as he called upon the Noah memories, or was too intoxicated to hold them back, was flushed, his chest an unmarked canvas for Cross to explore and touch, his head tilted sideways, his neck stretched and exposed for exploration as well. It was hot, it was sexy, and it was everything Cross could ever want.

“D-don’t stare,” Nea mumbled out, his left hand moving to try to pull Cross back to him. “I-if you want this to work, t-touch me.”

Cross blinked, then smirked. “Of course.” He reached over to the wine bottle and brought the bottle right to his lips, taking a swig right from the bottle, before he pulled Nea down to kiss him, letting the wine spill down their chins and into their throats, and if Nea’s hands holding tighter to his shirt during the kiss was any indication the alcohol was taking effect once again. He forgot that Nea was able to recover faster while the memories were called upon, no matter, he had an entire bottle ready to make Nea drink to keep him compliant.

When Cross broke the kiss, he made a shocked gasp as Nea instantly went to lick and suck the wine off of Cross’ chin and neck, his hands moving to undo Cross’ shirt. Cross helped him, cause fuck this. He was going to get as much out of this as possible, and if he wasn’t kicked out of the kingdom when this was over, he was going to make Nea fall for him and be his.

Once Cross’ shirt was thrown in the same direction of Nea’s, Nea slid from the seat to plop himself in Cross’ lap, his hands running over Cross’ chest and over his arms, his hips moving to grind himself against Cross. Cross just about lost it, his hands ran across Nea’s exposed skin, playing with every spot that made Nea gasp and moan, as he let the man on him grind away.

_ ‘Tell me, God, if you're real, can this angelic man in my arms ever love me the way I love him?’ _

~DGRAYMAN~

Nea knew he was tipsy, knew the wine Cross had given him was making his brain fuzzy, but this man, this monster, this hot god, was touching him, kissing him, making him feel things he shouldn’t for this debt racking, apprentice abusing, vanishing man. Fuck but Nea couldn’t help it. He didn’t think he would ever be able to feel like this with another again, his body felt so alive, so loved!

He knew he was moaning and gasping like a whore by now, thanks to the alcohol, but Nea didn’t even mind anymore, couldn’t mind the sounds he was making, as the god he was in the lap of gripped his ass and pulled him closer, and Nea blanked.

By the time he came back to himself, Cross had shifted them so Nea was straddling him once again in the throne chair, and fuck he would never be able to look at this damn thing without remembering what Cross was doing.

Nea was losing his mind, he could feel just how hard Cross was under him, and god those pants had to be so uncomfortable for Cross. But on top of it all, Nea couldn’t stop the gasps and moans as Cross basically worshipped his chest, his tongue and mouth working together to tease and nip every part he could reach, and Nea was eager to give him more skin to work his magic touch on. Nea whimpered as Cross pulled away and rested his head against Nea’s.

“Fuck Nea,” Cross panted out, his eyes darker and filled with lust. “This might have been a horrible idea.”

Nea blinked, pulled back to look at Cross who leaned back against the chair, and laughed. “Only you would start something like this and get all hot and bothered and realize you can’t actually touch the goods you want to.”

Cross’ eyes widened and his mouth opened to say something, until Nea smiled and leaned forward, before slowly licking his way up Cross’s neck going from shoulder to jawline, then back down and up again, his hands shifting to unbutton Cross’ pants.

“Nea stop,” Cross groaned out, one of his hands reaching up to grab Nea’s head and still it, the other to stop the hand unzipping his pants. “If you keep this up, I’m going to lose control and force myself on you.”

Nea shivered, his Noah memories shivered, the promise in those words, the idea of being taken by the man under him, Nea didn’t know how he could want anything else at the moment.

“Then I don’t think I’ll stop,” Nea whispered out, rolling his hips forward, moaning as he rubbed against the erection still trapped in Cross’ damned pants. “Fuck Cross, I don’t think I have ever wanted anything as bad as I want you.”

“CROSS MARIAN! HOW DARE YOU DEFILE MY NEA!”

Nea froze, his body stiff as a board. Cross pulled him closer, wrapped an arm around him lazily and grinned.

“Why hello, Millenium Earl,” Cross said, his voice still rough with desire. “I don’t see a claim mark on Nea, so I don’t see how he’s yours. If anything, Nea is mine.”

And there went Nea’s brain, short-circuiting and trying to figure out what the hell was happening, before he said fuck it, released his Noah Memories so he could feel the full effects of the alcohol and decided whatever Cross was doing had better be worth it, because if he woke up with a hangover naked in the Earls bed, Cross was going to find himself revived only to be killed again.

“Get rid of the interruption fast,” Nea heard himself say, loud enough for the fuming Earl to hear. “And I’ll gladly strip naked and let you take me right here on this chair. Mana won't mind as long as he is never told.”

And then Nea passed out, curled against Cross’ chest, hands resting on the strong chest of the man he trusted with his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Just a quick reminder that I love hearing from my readers! Even if you want to tell me the story could be better or I spelled something wrong I always read every comment I get and I try to reply to them all! Love you guys! Have a lovely time until the next update!


	11. Plan Gone Wrong, Monster Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst fight scene you will ever read. Nuff said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote a fight scene. It's a bad fight scene. This entire chapter is a bad fight scene. Critic it. Tell me what's wrong and what's unbearable. Inform me so I can make all future fight scenes I write for any of my other stories better. Teach me so I can be better! So I can come back to this chapter and make the fight better!
> 
> All reviews are welcome! And I mean all of them. I'm not a child that needs to be sheltered, critic me, scream at me, love me, hate me, it all comes back to making me a better writer and you all better readers and writers yourselves. Comment on my story! I look forward to it!

_ Family Matters _

_ Chapter 12 _

_ Plan Gone Wrong, Monster Queen _

_ ~DGRAYMAN~ _

When Nea opened his eyes again, he was met with utter destruction and Cross Marian laying on his back motionless. His head was still reeling from all the alcohol he had consumed at the start of Cross’ stupid plan, but if he was still here in the throne chair and not somewhere being molested by the Earl, then maybe the stupid plan actually worked.

“You awake yet, Nea?” came the grunted call from Cross, the man still not moving.

“Just woke up,” Nea rasped out, then coughed. Fuck his throat hurt like hell. “Wh-what happened?”

“Earl gets stronger when he’s pissed,” was all Cross said, still laying on the ground. “Your throat is going to hurt for a while. You woke up slightly when he got closer and grabbed you, and you started screaming, just screaming until I managed to get him off of you.”

Nea shivered. He didn’t like the sounds of that. Just how long was he in the Earl’s grasp? Was he touched or forced into things?

“Fuck,” Cross groaned, before slowly picking himself off the ground and moving to collapse next to Nea’s legs. “I can hear your brain moving way too fast for just waking up from a drunken stupor. You were in his grasp for ten minutes max and for that time he was more busy blocking and dodging bullets to do anything to you. Miss anything in that head of yours?”

Nea sighed, then let himself slip to the floor beside Cross. “Why do you know exactly what goes on in my head?”

“Magic.”

Nea laughed softly, shook his head, then started looking Cross over. He seemed to be in pain, but he had no visible wounds and he wasn’t bleeding as far as he could tell. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No,” Cross muttered, closing his eyes and leaning back against the throne chair. “I’m still recovering from the adrenaline rush I’ve been having for the past week. I crashed after the Earl left.”

“Left?” Nea questioned. “Where did he go?”

“Fuck if I know. Castela says he's not in the castle anymore, that he left the kingdom altogether,” Cross muttered, turning his head to look to the side to look at Nea. “But she sounded worried when she replied that he had gone off to the mountains. Something up there you guys are trying to hide?”

“Mountains?” Nea blinked. Were they hiding something in the mountains? Why would Castela be worried about what was in the mount- “Allen…”

Cross shot up, his eye wide with shock and watching Nea. “What about that idiot? Don’t tell me he’s on the goddamn mountain!”

“Him and a few others went up the mountain to find the cause of our monster problem and get rid of it,” Nea answered, his own eyes wide with fright. He could also feel his body start trembling. “They are the only reason I can think of for Castela to get worried about him leaving towards the mountains.”

Cross tried to stand up, his face set in stone once again. Nea could read Cross though, perks of being the bastard's friend for many years. His friend was panicking and he was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

“Cross,” Nea cooed gently, the panic wasn’t new to him, there were many times Cross had started panicking in the past. He knew how to handle this. “Hey. You’re tired and need to rest. Come on. Let’s get you into bed and I’ll go check on Allen. I can get to him faster than you can by using the ark. Just rest and I’ll make sure Allen and the others are fine.”

Oh so slowly, Nea continued to make promises to Cross, assurances that Allen would be fine, that he would go protect them himself, to just rest and let him take it from here. He continued making the promises as he helped Cross towards the nearest room he knew of, which just so happened to be his room.

By the time they reached the room, Cross was finally calming down enough from his panic to register that Nea had sat him on a very plush and very red bed, and was currently trying to remove his boots.

“Nea?”

“No boots on my bed,” Was the only response, before Nea yelped in triumph as he got one of the blasted boots off. “You are going to rest and sleep. I’m going to go help the group on the mountain. You are in no position to even attempt to join what is probably a very messy and dangerous fight. After a couple of hours of rest you should be good to go, so if we’re not back when you wake from your rest, get Tim to lead you to us. He will be able to find the portal.” Another sound of triumph rang out from between his lips as he finally got the other blasted boot off.

“What about the Earl and the fact that he’s heading to the mountain?” Cross asked, watching as Nea stood smoothly from in front of him.

Nea smiled gently and put his hand on Cross’s chest, not putting pressure to push him back, but just resting there. “I have someone special to look forward to returning to. If I have to face the Earl to ensure I come back safely, then I will. Allen will be there with me, so he can keep me grounded and help me stay safe from the Earl. Besides,” Nea leaned forward and hesitantly placed a gentle kiss on Cross’ lips, before pulling back and looking away, his face as red as a tomato. “If I don’t return I know you’ll hunt the Earl down to save me.”

Cross, the unflappable man who took everything you threw at him and ran with it, was frozen in shock, mind racing with what Nea had just done, that Nea found it easier to get Cross into bed and get him to rest in the bed. Cross came back to himself in time to see Nea walk out of the bedroom, muttering just loud enough for him to make out.

“Why did I even do that? He only touched me like that because of his plan.”

The door shut and Nea was gone before Cross could even open his mouth to protest every single doubt Nea had about how Cross felt towards him. He needed rest, and then he was going to find that portal, get the fools he had started seeing as his family back, and then he was going to make sure Nea knew exactly what he thought of him.

**~DGRAYMAN~**

When Nea walked out of the Ark gate, he expected to be met with his nephew and niece, he expected some kind of carnage, he expected to be inside a lab of some kind. What he got instead was walking straight first into a wall, only for it to vibrate and explode seconds after Nea managed to throw himself to the ground. The second thing he got was thousands of growls, millions of voices screaming in pain, and hundreds of rotting bear-human things that were all trying to kill the group of people surrounding a giant blue egg. When he saw Allen, Kanda, and Amber attacking the egg, his mind started to supply him with the information he needed to take in this scene.

Allen, Kanda, and Amber were attacking an Akuma Egg, the egg that allowed the Earl to create the frame for the Akuma so he could keep creating his minions. Lena, Lavi, Fair, and Sankada were all fighting the monsters trying to stop the three attacking the egg, and while some died easily, others were putting up more of a struggle and were slowly overpowering the four on guard duty.

A quick glance around the room he was looking into from the hole in the wall, showed that the Earl either hadn’t arrived yet to protect his egg or had and assumed the monsters would be enough to stop the group from destroying it.

When Nea heard the growl from behind him, he reacted instinctively and backflipped over the monster and onto its back, just barely missing the blades that almost took his arm off. Without missing a beat he jumped off of it and into the midst of the monsters that he had found himself surrounded by, and he smirked when he realized they really weren’t that smart, as he had already caused the monsters attacking him to end each other and start going after the ones he kept jumping behind. This was almost too easy.

Of course, he should have kept that thought locked away and not even thought.

Not even a moment later as he kept dodging the monsters, he ended up flipping around and finding himself trapped against a very large object that wrapped two very familiar and fear-inducing arms around him. It was then that Nea realized with a start that the Earl had arrived.

“What is this?” The Earl laughed eerily, floating into the air as the monsters turned their attention back on the group by the egg. “Little bugs in my hidden factory? Why that won’t do at all!”

Nea for all his promises and bravo found himself quickly falling into a panic. Though he had a very good reason to start panicking. The Earl was sorta absorbing him into his suit, which based on past experiences, was not a fun time at all.

“Kanda up!” Came a sudden shout, but Nea couldn’t identify who had shouted that, his panic was fully settling in.

Nea was struggling, his right leg and arm had already disappeared into the damned suit and the Earl was forcing him closer still. He had to get out, had to get free, had to run.

Then a broadsword flashed into view and Nea found himself falling into something smaller and leaner. A flash of white and then he was surrounded in a soft feather-like white cloak. Allen had just saved him. His nephew had just saved him from the Earl, and now he was going to be a burden to them because his mind was still racing and he was still panicking.

“Calm down Nea,” Came the soft voice from around him. “You’re having a panic attack. Deep breaths.”

Strangely, that soft voice was the only thing he could hear. He couldn’t hear the Earl or the monsters, he couldn’t hear the fight he knew was going on around him, hell he couldn’t even hear Allen, who had wrapped him in the white cloak, to begin with.

“Allen and the others need you to be calm,” the voice continued, the white shell pulsing with a gentle light. “You need to calm down and take things one at a time. First, you need to stay out of the Earl’s grasp. Second, you need to help destroy the egg as Allen and Kanda fight the Earl.”

“Wh-who are you?” Nea asked, slowly uncurling and relaxing. “Why are you so soothing?”

A light airy chuckle greeted Nea as a response. “You know who I am Nea. Just because we do not share Allen’s body anymore doesn’t mean I have forgotten you. Further, relax and allow a thread to circle you while you help. I am going to help you stay safe and away from the Earl.”

“Crown Clown?” Nea muttered, his eyes were starting to feel heavy.

The laughter turned dark, the bright white vanishing into total darkness. Then the near-silent voice rang out again. “Continue fighting me, Nea. I’ll enjoy breaking your will and bending you to my control. Just like all the others.”

The last thing he saw before his world went dark was the metal contraptions that made up the fat suit of the Earl.

**~DGRAYMAN~**

Allen groaned as he slammed into the wall, Crown Clown fluttering around him in tatters. Kanda was by his side a second later.

“What happened Moyashi?” The sound of a blade swinging through the air, had Allen groaning in pain again. The noise hurt his poor throbbing and pounding head. “Where is Nea?”

“I tried to free him from the Earl,” Allen muttered, struggling to stand up. “I had him wrapped in Crown Clown, I had him free. Then the Earl did… something… and Nea was ripped from the protective shell and forced into the Earl’s suit.”

“So we can’t attack the Earl without hurting Nea now,” Kanda responded, moving closer to give Allen a hand.

Allen hissed in pain and looked down. His wounded leg was bleeding again, his back felt like it had been crushed, and he was starting to feel light-headed. For all intents and purposes, Allen truly believed that his body was close to being broken from below his ribs down if the pain was anything to go by.

“Kanda!” Came the shout from somewhere, and then Allen found himself pressed close to Kanda’s chest, the world spinning as Kanda twirled them around, Mugen singing behind him as the monsters that tried to jump them all fell dead to the ground.

“You're too injured to fight, Moyashi,” Kanda growled out. Allen couldn’t even move to push him away and refute it. “We need to save Nea and destroy that egg. We don’t have time for you to be injured.”

“Don’t have time or not doesn’t matter,” Allen managed to hiss out as he tried to push away from Kanda’s chest. “I have to save him. Nea is terrified of the Earl, not to mention the Earl has an unhealthy obsession with my uncle. Nea is going to be so fucking scared after this.”

Kanda grunted and jumped into the air, and Allen was very proud of the fact that all he did was whimper against Kanda’s shoulder as his lower body was jolted violently. It fucking hurt, but they weren’t falling back to the ground.

“Then I’ll be your body, you focus on getting Nea out so we can kill the fucker.”

Allen didn’t know if he could fall in love with the dark-haired man anymore then he already was, but if he could, he would. Fuck Kanda was the perfect partner, fighting on the battlefield and rolling in bed. “Get me closer. Crown Clown can keep me from further injury, but I need to get closer to him then we're both probably comfortable with to get Nea out.”

Kanda nodded, and then they were moving, Allen clinging tightly as he tried to bring Crown Clown into a position to keep him in the air and fighting the Earl as Kanda fought separately. This was going to be the hardest fight in their lives. He could only hope that they managed to save Nea and kill the Earl quickly while the others finished the egg and fought the monsters.

**~DGRAYMAN~**

Mana wasn’t the most observant person in the castle, and he knew that. He was teased often enough by the people around him when he missed social cues or the tense atmosphere, that he would have to be the stupidest person in existence to not know that. He knew he could misread situations, he also knew when to read a situation and do something purposefully to break the atmosphere. He was a clown by heart and most forgot that. It was his trade and it was his secret weapon when dealing with people. For all his flaws, there was one thing he was not. Mana was loyal to those he called family. Loyal enough to go to a fight he might lose so he could protect his family members.

He had a bond with his brother, a bond that let him know exactly when his brother started to lose himself. Extreme emotions screamed through the bond, and Mana knew exactly when to drop the pretense and become serious. Which is why when he felt Nea’s terror and panic before the bond went dark, Mana was already moving towards his brother in the fastest way he could.

Running into Cross, who was limping and looked like he was about to pass out just by walking, was a plus. If Cross was that beat up he would be pissed and more aggressive in a fight then usual, especially when he sees where Nea is when they arrive.

Of course, they expected something bad when they arrived at the other side of the gate, they knew things had gone terribly wrong. Mana had filled Cross in on the situation as he knew it while they traveled, so they both were expecting monsters and the Earl. Of course, what you expect is never quite what you get. What they got when they exited the gate, froze them both on the spot, made them both see red.

Fair and Sankada were bleeding heavily, barely standing as they stood over Lena, Lavi, and Amber’s beaten and bleeding bodies. Kanda was lying motionless on top of the cracked and broken Akuma egg, Mugen held tightly in his hand. The Earl was floating in the air, in one hand he had Allen, poor beaten and broken Allen. In his other was Nea, unconscious and unmoving. The Earl was laughing, the last few monsters surrounded Fair and Sankada, growling and ready to finish the job.

Mana saw red, it was a lust for destruction, for killing the ones who hurt his beloved family, that took over. If there was one thing everyone learned while being around Mana, it was that his biggest flaw, but also his greatest achievement, was the ability to control the bloodlust that his family was born with, to control and conquer it, to hide the darkness that only he was born with, that darkness that made him the most feared Noah, more feared then the Earl himself.

It was this darkness, the darkness that the Noah thrived in, that took over, that stepped into the room in Mana’s place, the light chuckle catching the Earl’s attention.

Gunshots rang out, Cross growling behind him, and then the world was turning red, not because of bloodlust, but because Cross and Mana were unstoppable forces of nature, nothing had ever stopped them when they were together and pissed to hell and back.

Later, when everyone was in the Ark and recovering, Mana and Cross would only remember one thing vividly from when they had lost complete control.

‘The damn fat ass bastard escaped.’


End file.
